That SF Presidential campaign… October 26, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
I was interested in some of the critiques of McGuinness in comments this week and they raise serious questions. But before I get to them I have to note in passing the bald-headed partitionism of one questioner on FrontLine on Monday, a questioner who appeared blissfully unaware of the fact that this state has had a President from Northern Ireland for fourteen odd years now. The argument appeared rooted in some sort of essentialism about identity, we – down South – are us, they – up North – are other, which curiously, at least to my eyes seems like an odd inversion of certain strands of traditional Republicanism in its thinking as regards the identities extant on this island which rather than being complex and overlapping are fixed and immutable. Have we learned nothing? Well, apparently some have not.
It’s funny, the release of the Norris tape last week, like yet another seemingly quixotic attack by Gay Mitchell on Martin McGuinness at the weekend, felt like there was a parallel election process being run slightly to one side of the real one. Who in the world thought last week, or still thinks, David Norris is anywhere in contention for the Presidency – even if he uses ‘dark horse’ rhetoric? And likewise, although I think his showing will be reasonably good we know that McGuinness won’t come in above number 3 spot. But… there were solid tactical reasons to attack him.
So perhaps it is that the Norris tape was sat on until late in the campaign precisely in order to generate an effect were Norris a contender of substance, and now it’s been released either simply because that was the plan come what may or perhaps due to a more pernicious effort simply to get the boot in one last time now that he’s down.
Way back when over the Summer this tape might have scuppered his chances entirely, though not necessarily, but now? Given that there’s been relentless attacks on all candidates, again bar Higgins who is clearly a man of saintly mien, his rhetorical indiscretions seem somehow lesser, and perhaps that’s why his poll rating sees him as most likely 4th.
As was noted though previously, there’s method in Gay Mitchell’s madness last week in trying to whip up [further] resentment against Martin McGuinness. And understandable for a candidate who looks set to be the least effective FG Presidential nominee ever, and worse again likely to limp home well behind the hated Shinners. Small wonder that the McCabe family entered the fray. And while that too is understandable on a human level it merely points up a grim partitionism at work on this island where whatever the rhetoric to the contrary there is more weight accorded to the lives of some policemen than others. For those of us who considered the murder of McCabe to be murder, just like the murder of RUC and UDR men and women was murder this hierarchy is irrelevant, not least given the enormous sacrifices of human spirit that have been asked of unionists in the course of bringing the conflict to an end. But then, as has been made abundantly clear during the campaign, Unionists and Republicans seem to be often little more than a backdrop against which elements of the media, parties or candidates in this state can variously exercise their ire.
I was talking to a friend who is in SF the other day and it was interesting to hear their take on it. Although pragmatic and realistic about SF’s chances in the Presidential election they were remarkably upbeat. For them although it was clear McGuinness wouldn’t win they were pleased that he had done so well, and moreover they had the attitude that his candidacy would ‘lance a boil’. They didn’t go into detail, but I understood what they meant.
It’s not as if this has necessarily been good for SF in the short term. As was noted in a discussion on Pat Kenny on the radio this morning…
Campaign for SF was as much about trying to address the issue which has kept a ceiling on the SF vote – given the economic circumstances – which was the legacy of the conflict of the North and to get beyond it… but it hasn’t worked.
And how could it, really, given the candidate and the nature of the discourse in the south which surrounds him? But perhaps it will lance a boil, albeit not immediately.
Here’s the thing. There has not been and never will be again an SF candidate as contentious as McGuinness. And yet he has managed at one time to get near enough 20 per cent support from the electorate. He won’t get that tomorrow though, or at least so it seems. But he may well match the SF party vote as polled this week and weekend, somewhere between 13 and 16 percent and if it’s the latter then that’s a result. All this with McGuinness. What one wonders would another less conflicting candidate have done? Problem is what other candidate? Some are too young, literally in constitutional terms, others are too close to his generation. Perhaps a less conflicting candidate, an O’Caolain or even a Morgan or a de Brún might have done better. We’ll never know.
The Independent had this take on it this morning:
While Michael D Higgins will be the ultimate beneficiary of that timely piece of bushwhacking, there should be fringe benefits for McGuinness. It seems likely that some preferences will swap from Gallagher to him. One or two extra percentage points in the polls will make a difference to Sinn Fein, which is in this race for long-term gains.
Any vote above 10pc of the poll — the figure achieved in the general election earlier this year — is a result.
But this has many ramifications. Firstly it is clear that SF hasn’t thrown him or his generation under the bus. This isn’t a small thing. For me coming from the WP originally what has been striking is how well managed all this has been. SF has broadly speaking held onto its core while expanding its base. And it’s done this by not ignoring that core or its history even if the direction has… erm… changed. Unfortunately the WP in the 1980s tended to do the opposite, and ignored its own history whether recent or not so recent. Indeed it’s only since the split in the 1990s and the departure of many who knew all too well about what was going on that it began to come to terms with its own past.
There’s no way to overestimate how important that is in terms of consolidating a movement. Lose the heritage and supporters and members become detached. Retain it and even if the line changes at least there are points of commonality sufficient to smooth over many a dispute [indeed the Hanley Miller book on the WP is clear on how well through the 70s the OSF managed this retaining members in numbers in areas in the North which one would have thought on paper would have gone to PIRA and PSF or INLA and IRSP but stayed on board because of a loyalty to the organisation - that many of those ultimately detached during the hunger strikes speaks of the power of those events rather than undermining that argument].
So, from here on out it is essentially easier for SF. It will present younger candidates, those who have little or no connection with armed struggle. This is all grand, but from a left perspective it leaves open the question as to just how left wing the party is. It is all too easy to see it slipping into a sort of faux-FF position of the centre [and there’s the obvious issue as to how well SF can retain coherence in the absence of that earlier generation, though FF offers a reasonably good indication that it can continue for quite some time].
There’s another point and it’s not often touched upon. This is a Fine Gael/Labour Party government, two parties whose hostility, in the main, to Republicans has been visceral and even intrinsic to aspects of their self-identity. There are those of us who have been very interested to see what if any impact their election would have on the peace process, and indeed the increased profile and representation of SF. To be honest so far, relatively speaking, so good. Exchanges in the Dáil have been less rancourous than might have been expected given the arrival of Adams there, though as we see on a weekly basis from the Seanad there’s still a level of hostility [by the way, the oddity of FG or the LP taking this on their shoulders is little commented upon. Of all parties on this island they surely are amongst those who have suffered least directly during the conflict and for those of us from points various beyond them there’s always been something a little cosmetic about it, particularly, say for those who have known personally those whose families or friends were injured grievously by PIRA, or indeed OIRA or the UVF or suffered discrimination under the Stormont regimes and harassment and worse under the British].
And in a way I wonder if this lancing of the boil operates in a way as yet unconsidered by Fine Gael, that by training such fire upon a man who soon enough short of a startling turn around in the polls will be – and one suspects thankfully – making his way back to the more congenial environment of the Assembly and the Executive, in some ways they’re exhausting that fire. And after that who will FG have to exercise its ire, or will it even have the appetite or enthusiasm to do so – particularly if McGuinness comes in ahead of Mitchell. Quite some turnaround there for an FG candidate to do less well than the SF one. But an indication of a potential future that opens up once McGuinness et al have left the stage. And that day is moving along fairly sharpish. McGuinness can be a lightening rod, but Dessie Ellis? Does he function in quite the same way, and then drop back a generation and those in it. Does Peadar Tóibín inspire the same animosity? How could he? At some point the power of SF to excite negative responses is going to diminish and I suspect sharply. It’s not difficult to remember how in 1992 Democratic Left wasn’t seen as a suitable partner for Fine Gael in government. Almost three years later and it was quite a different story. Which isn’t to suggest FG and SF cosying up together, highly unlikely one would think, but instead that nothing is static.
As noted above this functions for SF as well, in that the diminishing proximity of the armed struggle will inevitably change SF and the perception of SF and not necessarily to their advantage. But that’s for the further future. For the moment if they can consolidate at 15, 16 or 17 per cent, as the polls would seem to imply they’ll be happy enough.
And all this before this government has to impose socio-economic policy with its own stamp?
I think it’s just McGuinness’s past which has told against him. I’ve heard people say repeatedly that his personality, or perceived personality, turns them off. McGuinness seems defined by a certain rigour and rectitude, as someone said to me you could imagine him being disapproving if he met you in the pub during the day (I think Gilmore comes across the same way). That’s how it is, but Adams strikes a much more avuncular and warm note and might have done better. For that matter, I think Pearse Doherty might even have won the whole thing had he not been excluded on age grounds. I still reckon Mc G will come a strong third, or do even better if the Gallagher vote collapses. And I agree with the ‘lance the boil’ summation, all the old skeletons were exhumed in the course of this campaign and all the muck thrown and none of it will have the same resonance again.
Sorry, NOT just McGuinness’s past.And I think the ‘west brit’ comment got his campaign off to a bad start and put him on the back foot. It was very old style SF, the idea that everyone who opposes the party is a Brit Loving pawn of the Securocrats. By comparison, what I think was impressive on Frontline was how calm and measured the demolition of Gallagher was, McGuinness was happy enough just to provide the rope and let SG do the hanging.
“Does Peadar Tóibín inspire the same animosity?”
The words inspire and Peadar Tóibín don’t belong in the same sentence. He’s mediocre in the same mould as FF, nothing more.
McGuinness, because of who he is despite his denials, and the journey he has undertaken from there to here, stands out from the crowd in SF. He was SF’s best chance for the big time. Adams is unimpressive by comparison. The rest of them, more so. Doherty is a good talker, but being new to the fold, of the post-conflict generation, lacks gravitas.
Fair points. But perhaps being a good talker is a more appealing quality to the current electorate than possessing gravitas. The former can come across as personability, the latter as sombreness. When you look at how close Gallagher came to winning it all, maybe it indicates that the construction of some kind of plausible media personality is the most important thing of all.
In fairness to Tóibín, of whom I’ve had no first hand experience, I saw him talking about IIRC the JLCs in the Dáil and he was pretty good. Certainly a lot more fluent than other TDs.
Jebus Eamonn… ‘how close Gallagher came to winning it all’… don’t tempt fate!
Adams would have faced the same sort of treatment as McGuinness and the brother could have provided additional problems.
I don’t buy the idea that running McGuinness was about “lancing a boil”, precisely because, as you note, they don’t really need to make candidates highly associated with the IRA campaign electable in the South for simple generational reasons. Getting over the hurdle that their candidates past might present simply won’t be much of an issue as fewer and fewer of their candidates have a past at the top of the IRA, or indeed a direct association with the iRA at all.
Running him was a decision based on a number of factors:
1) Celebrity. He was the highest profile candidate they could run.
2) Charisma. He has a bit of it. The likes of O’Caolain do not.
3) A lack of trust in the Southern candidates. They might have run Pearse “More suited to selling insurance” Doherty if he was old enough, but dragging a candidate from the North who already held the most important job in party hands says something about their view of the calibre of their Southern representatives.
4) A misjudgment of how far along the process of forgetting about the IRA campaign is in the South and also of how well “peacemaker” plays. They knew that McGuinness would attract hysterical attacks, but I think that they believed that presenting him as a celebrity/peacemaker/statesman would outweigh the damage of those attacks. Give it five more years and they might have been right on this, but I suspect that they extrapolated too much from Louth.
5) A decision to run a conservative campaign, all about statesmanship and investment and the glamour of meeting international leaders. And, of course, to say nothing of significance about the crisis and austerity in the South. McGuinness as one of the main neo-liberal hatchetmen in the North was the least credible candidate they could possibly have chosen if they were going to run an anti-austerity campaign or a radical campaign of any sort. He’s the guy to pick for a “steady pair of hands” campaign. This ties in with the criticism in Phoenix which self evidently came from some disgruntled left-leaning member of Dublin SF.
The last factor is, in my view, a crucial one. And while i object to it politically on just about every level, I don’t think that it was particularly stupid. They announced McGuinness after it became clear that there would be no Fianna Fail candidate and before Gallagher had his surprise surge in the polls. It was rational for them to calculate that the biggest pool of additional votes available was from Fianna Fail rather than to their left. That’s a section of the electorate less susceptible to the attractions of a leftist appeal than average, and probably less repulsed by the IRA legacy than average too. McGuinness might well have been the best candidate available to pull in that vote. Indeed he might have done so had Gallagher not managed to occupy that space.
I don’t know for sure what their hopes were going into the campaign, but I suspect that they hoped for a better performance than now seems likely at least up until the Gallagher surge. But objectively speaking, I think that anything over 17% is a good result for them and anything over about 14% is half decent.
Very little I’d disagree with in tgat analysis. I also agree they perhaps didn’t take Gallagher into account, but, if they were labouring under an illusion they weren’t the only ones. At the time he was announced I cautioned that I didn’t think MMcG would win but much of the media seemed to regard him as doing much better… And it’s possible to see the FG attacks initially driven by that fear.
I certainly didn’t see the Gallagher surge coming, so I’m not really in a position to sneer at SF for not seeing it either.
The Fine Gael strategy is somewhat more mysterious. McGuinness did make a big splash when he first announced, so FG may well have believed that being the anti-McGuinness candidate was a good move, letting them marginalise everyone else in an election about the IRA. Its also possible that they didn’t really fear a McGuinness win but simply thought it would play well anyway – overestimating the degree of hostility the IRA connection would attract just as SF underestimated it. After all, their own base are generally the most anti-republican elements in society, and sections of the media did go predictably berserk.
That sounds about right. Isn’t it a truism generals [and we can extend it to politicians] fight the last war. In the case of SF… not so much, but in the case of FG definitely.
I think the “bald-headed partitionism” has been there since the 1920s to be honest, McGuinness running just served to drag it out into the open.
Ignore the former consitutional piety about “pending the re-integration of the national territory” as rhetorical guff. Beyond that, apart from outrage / sympathetic concerns in the early years of the most recent Troubles, I honestly think most people down here have been content to look at the map of the island, see the border and as regards anything north of that, shudder “Here be monsters”.
Anecdotal case in point: when we moved to Dublin in 1973 (only a year after Bloody Sunday, remember), my mum was “welcomed” by one of the neighbours with “A lot of people on the road aren’t happy over refugees from Belfast moving in.”
The GFA simply afforded the southern electorate a guilt-free way to be done with having headaches about the north and wash their hands of the whole business. Anthony McIntyre had an interesting comment on his blog recently:
“…the extent to which republicanism in general and the peace process in particular has failed to legitimise the Provisional IRA’s armed struggle in the minds of the Southern electorate.”
Personally, I’d re-phrase that as
“the extent to which the peace process has failed to legitimise republicanism in general in the minds of the Southern electorate.”
Nordies are fine in the south once they don’t mention the war – hence McAleese was never seen as a challenge to the partitionist mentality, she only came to prominence as the bishops’ mouthpiece in the New Ireland Forum so there was never gonna be a whiff of cordite off her. You could call it “safe nordie” syndrome. Different story with McGuinness obviously, hence the very different reaction.
As far back as before the Treaty, southern politicians – and I include War of Independence SF in this – have never really got their heads around the north and have sought refuge in rhetoric to compensate. McGuinness’ candidacy was an uncomfortable reminder of that and I’d say the commentariat can’t wait for Friday til he vanishes back to where he came from.
That’s very true.
Speaking of the Treaty isn’t it curious that of all of the protagonists it was Collins who had perhaps the best grasp of what Northern nationalism/republicans must be going through even if his tactics seem a little shaky in retrospect.
“Nordies are fine in the south once they don’t mention the war – hence McAleese was never seen as a challenge to the partitionist mentality, she only came to prominence as the bishops’ mouthpiece in the New Ireland Forum so there was never gonna be a whiff of cordite off her. You could call it “safe nordie” syndrome. Different story with McGuinness obviously, hence the very different reaction.”
I’ve just been reading back issues of the Sunday Independent
in a newspaper archive, and in the mid-80s there were
several attacks on Mary McAleese by people like Anne Harris
and Liam Collins (McAleese eventually took legal action against
the paper). She might not have had “a whiff of cordite”
about her, but her Northern background certainly alarmed
anti-nationalist elements in the Republic long before she
began campaigning for the Presidency.
*Tinfoil hat warning*
Mad little theory……
The entirely unforeseen – though not, with hindsight, completely unpredictable – rise of Gallagher affected all the candidates to a greater or lesser extent: he replaced Norris as everyone’s fave indie -dance floorfiller, he gobbled up the FF wallflowers that SF had been counting on, and he left Mary D and Dana disconsolately at the mineral bar – only MDH and Mitch were unaffected: the former stayed about as popular as he had been to begin with and the latter stayed as unpopular as he’s always been.
But there were two parties in particular that had something to lose if SG won: SF didn’t need to win the election, but they needed a much better showing than they got in the GE to prove they were still on the up, and Gallagher was eating into that: since they weren’t going to win, it was all about the FPVs. So, in that regard, MMG going for SG made sense. And the other party with a lot to lose?
Fianna Fail.
Two scenarios, neither of them all that attractive to the sodgers: Option 1) Seán becomes president, and, then, either 1a) all the stuff they know about him comes out, and his links with FF retard their recovery, or 1b) his presidency is a roaring success, he serves one term and then takes over FF, or sets up a new party that sweeps up their ‘natural’ constituency. Since MM and the Ogra gen want to rebuild as an urban, socially liberal and technocratic party, this isn’t a pleasing prospect.
Option 2) -even worse: Sean doesn’t win, but comes very close; with his reputation soaring; he runs at the next available by-election, and soon becomes the figurehead of the disaffected rural know- nothing wing of the party. Micheál vacillates once to often, there’s leadership challenge and it’s the Seánie show, rendering any hope of an FF recovery impossible, since, as they well know, you can’t govern this country without winning Dublin, and with SG at the helm, they’re back in Biffo territory. MM can at least do a passable imitation of urbane and he is at least from a city.
So FF shaft him, but since they can’t be seen to do it, they set up MMG with the info, either unbeknownst to him, or with his connivance – and helpfully produce details of Hughie Morgan’s cheque promptly. They might, of course, also have been helping with other bits of the drip of unhelpful facts about SG over the past few weeks – after all, they’d be the lads who’d know….
Don’t mind me. Too much coffee……
Nothing is beyond the realms of possibility with FF….. and there were plenty pissed off with Gallagher for abandoning the fold and running himself.
Still, in the run up to the Dublin West By Election, which they hope to do well in and give the grassroots a boost …. Why would FF want to remind everyone of the Galway Tent, 5k for a photo with Cowen etc?
At this stage nothing would surprise me Sonofstan… Certainly I think you’re right re why there might be an SF motivation to hobble him.
Must confess that I didn’t anticipate the strength of negative reaction to McGuinness during the campaign. I don’t think it ‘lanced the boil’ either. The younger and future voters are the ones who wont have lived through the Troubles and will be easier won over by Sinn Fein.
I expect him to poll better than he has in the polls,
First off after the bile of the first few weeks of the campaign I’m sure there were some people who wouldn’t admit to pollsters that they were voting for McGuinness.
Secondly some of Gallaghers vote will go to him.
He could end up getting 18% to 20% of the vote.
That said if he does get just 13%…..
In hindsight I wonder was running McGuinness a good idea?
It was assumed that as he was known as having been in the IRA he wouldn’t have the same credibility problem as Adams has when he says he wasn’t in the IRA. Instead we got the line that McGuinness had left the IRA in 1974 which few if any believed. Of course by doing that he wasn’t incriminating himself in anything beyond what he was already convicted with.
Given that Adams and McGuinness wont go on forever, the election would have been an ideal time to have introduced one of the Northern leadership to the electorate of the Republic. That is assuming the next Sinn Fein leader will be from the North (although that in itself may have opened a can of worms in the party over the succession).
People are overlooking the fact that it is important to run a campaign with a high profile militant Republican doing well. It is an opportunity to explain why the war had to be fought, why people joined.
I think it has been a roaring success for SF and will lead up to the locals in 2014 where they should be looking at 20% of the vote.
Have to be grateful to SF for doing a proper job on Gallagher, and driving another nail into the FF coffin.
Who’ll be the next President after Higgins? Looks like Gerry Adams.
[...] That SF Presidential campaign… (cedarlounge.wordpress.com) [...]
i disagree with the lance the boil analogy. some people define themselves by there opposites. for alot of people in the elite in the southern state that opposite is republicanism. some of it comes down to the fear and reality of violence and some the objectives.of republicanism conservative attitudes to change etc. Sf have to accept it, i thaught they did by putting mcguinness up or any one with an army backround for the president its an attention getter, manipulating the pradicatibility of certin people to get attention and of the back of that make points, all ireland which he hammered home the pay of politicians and prestige which i think he done well on. would have like to see him pull the eu/imf into the debate. missed oportunity. maybe SF won’t be able to pull the same trick twice but they could pull variences off it but only as a platform. they’ll never lance the boil untill a new boggyman comes along imo.
I think the Belfast people underestimated the hostility McGuinness would attract. (I don’t buy ‘lancing the boil’). After Adams won Louth despite McConville and Liam’s troubles, SF reckoned that the memory of the war was fading. Belfast also believe the FF vote is theirs to hoover up.
McGuinness is a star candidate, who has a sellable past as a disinfranchised Derryman who joined the Ra to defend his community. Only west brits could object to that, surely?
Don’t forget also that McGuinness is feted, indeed lauded, when he visits the US and elsewhere; they don’t care he was an IRA leader for 20 years- he is a symbol of one of the few successful peace processes in the world.
Enter the reality south of Dundalk: there are lots of people in the south who despise the IRA and they are not all Blueshirts, SIndo journalists or west brits. Nobody believes Martin left the IRA in 1974 and he was never convincing in answering it; The IRA killed quite a few people in the Free State and people remember them (by the way I’m sure FG would regard the murder of Billy Fox as a bit of an attack on them). FF’s core were always more likely to go for Gallagher than McGuinness (FF’s core contains quite a few Gardai). (I don’t swallow this FF as Shinners by default stuff at all).
In political terms McGuinness getting 15% plus is a success for SF as a party, but internally, and especially in the 6 counties this was being sold as being about a lot more. Some of SF’s people came out of it well, Padraig McLochlainn for instance, Mary Lou did ok, but others should remain behind closed doors; Robbie Smyth embarrassed himself on Vincent Browne.
By the way SF are partitionist- they have different policies north and south of the border and they keep their northern people off the doorsteps canvassing in Dublin because they got bad feedback in 2002 and 2004.
There’s a difference between outright partitionism and having policies tailored in some respects to different electoral contexts because there are distinctions as I note above between six counties and RoI. I’m not sure how much they kept their ‘norther people’ off doorsteps in 2007 because I met groups while canvassing for TG who clearly had northern members – but I do’nt think that that is evidence of ‘partitionism’.
I think it’s true that there was an underestimation of the hostility, but I don’t think they thought seriously he’d win in a context where SF candidates have always been transfer unattractive.
And I should note the ‘lance the boil’ comment was made well into the campaign, not about the rationale for the campaign. I think there is some truth in it as a dynamic. A sort of cathartic effect which won’t work for them in this election – and never would – but will be of use to them down the line.
But what does SF stand for? It participates in the partitionist assembly in the North, and the partitionist Dail in the South (that’s how they used to see it)? Does that not make them partitionist? I’m not in any way a sympathiser of the dissident replublicans, but it does seem to me they have lost their reason for existence.
In the North are they not just a communalist party? In the south that means nothing. In the north they seem cool about austerity, in the south they claim to oppose it, so are they left/socialist or not? Very confusing. Maybe they a re like FF, a party that had a cause, lost it and now exist just to win power.
http://thepensivequill.am/2011/10/moratorium.html
The McIntyre piece on the election quoted by Nightdub; worth reading
Ah yes, bald-headed partitionism. Where else would you get it? Apparently these people think that down here is different from up there. That people down here are different from people up there. Down here is full of those bald-headed partitionists. I met one of them a while back. His name was Mick. He was a farmer from the County Laois. He told me proudly he’d never been to the North in his life. A neighbour had been, you see. And he didn’t like it. Apparently, there were heavily armed soldiers on the streets and he got very hostile looks in some places when he spoke. And he didn’t like all these Loyalist paramilitary flags on the poles and people told him he shouldn’t go to certain areas for fear he might be murdered. And a bomb went off somewhere when he was there and killed a rake of people in a pub. And so on that basis Mick decided that he didn’t particularly want to holiday up there.
Mick gets on great with his neighbours down in Laois. They’re all in the local GAA club and they all go to Sunday Mass and have the crack together after. And they drink together of a Saturday in the pub. There does be the odd oul row about this and that but no more than anywhere else.
I told Mick he’s just the same as two farmers I know in the County Tyrone. They’re neighbours, Paddy and Billy. Yes you’ve guessed it. Paddy’s Catholic and Billy’s Protestant. And they detest each other and all they stand for. And everyone around knows exactly what everybody else is. And their kids go to separate schools and separate sports clubs and don’t mix. And the Catholics vote SF and the Protestants vote DUP. And during the troubles people from both communities killed people from the other community. And you don’t forget about that too quickly. In fact you remember it for generations. You could say that up there is a place where there is a constant conflict between the two communities – always there and at its worst, violent and bloody.
But besides that, sure down here and up there, it’s all the same. Bald-headed partitionists… where else would you get them?
Except I’m not suggesting there’s no distinctions, what I’m suggesting was that the comment made on the program was particularly stupid.
Of course there’s distinctions, though they’re perhaps less extreme than you propose there. I’ll bet you could find two farmers, let’s call them Séan and Sam, one a Catholic and one a Protestant who live beside each other and despite having different national identities, or somewhat different – because let’s not entirely overstate this, get along as they always have just fine even though they worship in different churches. Or you could find examples of a range of behaviours equal to and probably including sectarianism of one form or another. Cast you mind back 100 years or more and you’d certainly find it at state and societal level agin Catholics.
I’m presuming you don’t believe there’s something intrinsic to people who happen to be born within the six counties that causes a greater propensity to violence? Or do you think it might just be the byproduct of societal structures centred on religion, repression and domination of one group by another across historical time into the near contemporary period etc?
And by the way, given that I’m not a member of the GAA, rarely these days attend a game, almost never go to mass (or service), get into a pub about once a month at best if I’m lucky I’m somehow not ‘Irish’?
Furthermore… there would be communities in da Nort where everyone goes to Mass, is into GAA etc
And indeed people in the South who are as different to Farmer Mick as Paddy and Billy- albeit in other ways.
Sorry my points were made more eloquently by WBS below
I don’t get that last paragraph, WBS. I’m certainly not suggesting that you or anyone else is somehow not Irish.
Basically, what I am saying is that the North and the South are different. That there is a logic to being partitionist. Indeed that to some (including me sometimes), partitionism is no more than common sense. The north is trouble and conflict and negative energy. Sure what’s the sense of trying to link our State up with all that? We’ve plenty of problems of our own. But they pale compared to the problems up there. So leave them at it and let them sort it out for themselves.
But once the whole island was trouble and negative energy. Moreover there is distinctiveness within the 26, urban rural, inter urban, inter rural, class, etc. So who is this ‘we’ you talk of south of the border? And moreover even beyond a responsibilty to those in the north who share citizenship, a cultural identity with the south etc we also have to recognise all those on the island as being Irish in one way or another and shape ways that they can express that even if it means some still look to London for primary political and other identifications.
My own belief is that the conflict in the north was very mech exacerbated by the disinterest and aversion in the south leaving northern nationalism isolated and feeling it was detached leading to terrible outcomes. I’d not want that to happen again.
My point re the last paragraph is that your seemingly homogenous picture of life south of the border isn’t entirely borne out by my experience or many others where religious and other differentiation including political is a daily fact of life.
“all those on the island as being Irish in one way or another “
Well that’s debatable really, it depends on what constitutes “Irish”. One could equally well argue that all on these islands are British in one way or another, again depending on how one defines British. And then one could argue that we’re all Europeans at this end of the Eurasian land mass. Or that we’re all human on this planet. Again I agree that one can debate the point, but the political distinctions on the basis of “nationality” are relatively recent, and becoming less meaningful all the time. In other words we’re in a port-nationalist era, globally. And thankfully so. The sooner we move on from the categorisation of humanity on the basis of that passing fad the better. Oh, the future belongs to class divisions, bigtime.
…post-nationalist era…
Well in a way I hope my point transcends nationality or nationalism and shifts to something akin to a duty of care to humans and most particularly those closest to us. Which seems to me to be the very definition of socialism.
But that said nationalism is as a force remarkably powerful and doesn’t appear to be ‘removable’ even if it can be channelled into more positive forms.
I think your introduction of British nationalism is important. At some point I could see something not dissimilar on this island to the British set up with a broad sense of Irishness but with that also supplemented in the north with Irish and British aspects and expressed with political links east west there to London albeit in the context of a federal or UI arrangement on the island.
I know that given your membership of a party that seeks a UI all this talk of retaining political/cultural links to London and federalism must be anathema.
WBS, I’m in the WP because of the Marxism, not because of the cause of a United Ireland. I suspect that by the time we achieve a Marxist-based polity that the united Ireland aspect, or national politics at any level, here and elsewhere, will be on its way to becoming largely irrelevant. I don’t disagree that it (nationality, nationalism) has been a strong current in politics and identity in the past, and continues to be, but I would find it difficult to concieve of a future where it becomes even more important than it is now, and I would say it has become less meaningful that it used to be, here and elsewhere, so i would expect its influence to wane over time.
Sorry, I meant to say that your point about East-West ties is one I’d agree with, in the sense that regional ties within a larger European (or larger again) super-state with federal or confederal status is possibly on the cards as the next step in the evolution of state-based politics in this part (and others) of the world. We can only hope and work towards that super-state being a socialist one.
I’m yanking your chain LATC in the last comment hence to smiley….
That said in the post national world wouldnt it be passing strange if Ireland wasn’t a unitary territory? I mean how does post nationalism wind up in a place where there are national or sub national divisions?
Ah yeah, I knew you were messing there, but the point was still a valid one you made, and hence the reply.
On the unitary territory, I would hope that the jurisdictional boundaries would become as meaningless as those between Irish counties or between German lander (how do I add an umlaut there?). Whether I live in Ireland, West Britain, Northwest Europe or wherever really doesn’t interest me much, it’s a postal address. What does interest me is the class nature of the political system which makes the laws and drives the economics that impact on my daily life. Not denying that people have different traditions in Dublin vs London or Navan vs Potsdam or whatever, but I just don’t see any reason why that would be the dominant factor in determining an idealised form of governance.
“That said in the post national world wouldnt it be passing strange if Ireland wasn’t a unitary territory?”
But surely in a post-national world there’d be no Ireland?
Anyway, Ireland is a unitary territory as it is – it’s an island and as Behan sang “thank God we’re surrounded by water”.
“your seemingly homogenous picture of life south of the border isn’t entirely borne out by my experience.”
Ok, I’ll expand on my picture of life in the south. Mick the Laois farmer’s kids have friends in school whose parents are Polish, others Lithuanian and others Phillipino. The kids and the parents all get on well together. Other kids around are also in the rugby club in Portlaoise. An old school friend of Mick’s recently got same-sex civil partnershipped. Mick sent hime a congratulatory message on Facebook.
And so on. The wonderful multi-facetedness of life down here in the Free State.
All of which is to be found also in Northern Ireland.
With the one massive, humongous, defining difference -there is an ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland between two separate ethnic groups who have inhabited the place for the last 400 years give or take, and have been in conflict all that time. Most recently that conflict was for 30 years or so very bloody and vicious. The nationalists are of course part of the broader nationalist population of the whole island. The unionists are not. They are different, separate. Both groups have different histories, look at history differently.
That is why there is partition. The border is a physical and political manifestation of that partition. But the underlying partition is the division, the separateness of those two groups.
So I sympathise with all those innocent souls down here who are happy enough with this particular state down here and can’t see why it and they should be upset by engaging too much with the very troubled statelet up there.
I’ll leave it at that. This has been a good thread. I’m glad I bothered with it!
My own belief is that the conflict in the north was very mech exacerbated by the disinterest and aversion in the south leaving northern nationalism isolated and feeling it was detached leading to terrible outcomes. I’d not want that to happen again.
‘very much exacerbated’ by uninterest down here? really?
I have to be honest and say my impression when up there is no one ‘up there’, either side of the divide, cares much about what we think ‘down here’ – on all sides, they were pretty unimpressed with us until recent decades, and the schadenfreude felt when our economic miracle turned out to be as substantial as a Marian apparition was not confined to the unionist ‘side’.
@LATC,
I’m always a bit nervous about ‘post-nationalism’ when it often seems to be promoted by people who want to see old-fashioned ‘artificial’ barriers to the movement of capital removed, but see nothing wrong with retaining and strengthening barriers to the movement of people.
SoS, I use post-nationalism in the sense of replacing it with international socialism rather than global capitalism. But your point is a good one, the capitalist form is certainly the one in vogue at present. if you can supply a better phrase for me to use I’m all ears.
SOS, I’m thinking in particular of the period between 1965 and 1988, and I’m thinking in terms of there not being significant political representation from down south, indeed an aversion. I don’t think it’s coincidental that in the wake of the AIA things did improve and the admittedly already extant shift to politics in SF became more pronounced.
My bottom line here is that both the UK and the ROI have a responsibility here which is why a traditional UI is a non starter, whatever emerges may have aspects of that but it’s going to be a lot more complex and a lot more interesting and perhaps with luck well see this spill south of the border and into the UK too.
By the way the response from SF was in opposition to the AIA but it’s funny how things work out….
Re the aversion of Southern politicians making things worth.
The Irish community in the North were being discriminated against and indeed slaughtered (often with the collusion of the state) during the period WBS talked about. During this time the response of the Southern political entity was generally just to provide support – intelligence and diplomatic to the UK. Northern Nationalists were villified in large parts of the Southern press. Those circumstances substantially increased support for militant republicans among Northern Nationalists. To put it crudely – who else gave a shit about them?
(I appreciate slaughter was going on both sides by the way and that there was no alternative to some type of security co-ordination, but I aim to show a potential effect of Southern detachment on people who considered themselves Irish)
That’s precisely it Ramzi. Look at the murder of the two soldiers who drove into the funeral cortege – 88 I think it was. The response suggested to me a community that was floating free, that only looked to itself for reference and moral compass with terrible side effects and in no small way because it was so isolated from a broader polity.
Of course there’s a basic strategic reason why the south cannot and should not cut the Norther adrift [anymore than the UK will for a long time to come]. That level of insecurity isn’t containable behind a border, it spills and seeps south and east as it did.
One further thought. Even if one agrees that there are communal divisions – which I do, though again, I don’t think they’re as pathological as suggested in a comment further back, that still doesn’t stop for one moment a commonality with people simply because they’re in that situation. I’d have thought it would engender a sympathy for both communities and a wish to work with them in order to ameliorate problems while in no way diminishing respect for both identities. If socialism isn’t about engaging with the difficult precisely because it’s difficult then it’s not about much at all really.
+1 ramzi
“The Irish community in the North were being discriminated against and indeed slaughtered (often with the collusion of the state) during the period WBS talked about.”
I think the statistics show that people (IRAs, INLA etc) from the “Irish community in the north” slaughtered about twice as many people as did people (UVF, UDA, RUC, British Army) from the “British community in the North” during that time.
And am I to take from this Ramzi, WBS, Shea consensus that somehow those (the majority) in the Irish community in the South who either strongly opposed the slaughter or ignored it and got on with their lives, were therefore somehow to blame for it happening? If so, I disagree. Strongly.
I think those in the south (or elsewhwere for that matter) who treated the situation as purely a security issue, or indeed purely as the fault of one sectorof the community did contribute to the situation being worse.
Adding to Ramzi’s points. The way you phrase that response Joe is interesting. It’s essential to look at the roots of the conflict which stretched back certainly to 1920 where one community was locked within a highly repressive political structure antagonistic to even the slightest expression of their identity. 1969 didn’t come out of the blue. It was the product of that community stranded within an essentially paramilitary state. Does that justify what came after? Of course not, but these things have dynamics. Moreover it wasn’t a case that in 1987 when I was in and out of Belfast that it was somehow less repressive than 1967. It was by any measure more so in terms of policing, army, and indeed the paramilitaries themselves Republican and Loyalist. Moreover it was a political environment where Unionism of any stripe was unwilling to share power with even moderate nationalism.
To frame it as simply ‘slaughter’ by one side or the other disengages to a degree from that overall environment.
In regards then to ‘blame’. No, not blame, in the individual sense though in a collective sense I think it led to pernicious attitudes, though it’s also interesting how you merge ‘opposition’ to the slaughter and ignoring it which are fundamentally two different approaches though they occasionally fed off each other, but as I’ve noted above this state through the 1970s was perfectly willing to subcontract the situatoin to the British. In the 1920 to the proroguement of Stormont in 71/2 ish the British were happy to subcontract it to Unionism. In other words at every turn there was a lack of willingness to engage with responsibilities which were very real on both the British and Irish side.
And when did the situation begin to improve? I’d suggest that it was from the mid-80s when a nascent politicisation inside the RM was matched by a very real fear on the part of the irish and British that that politicisation could lead to their predominance within nationalism. And paradoxically that fear led to the Anglo-Irish Agreement which ultimately as part of a broader process of engagement led to the BA/GFA.
Finally, I think it’s fair to say that engagement worked in a way that security solutions didn’t. And it’s obvious why… as soon as people got into talks they had to bargain and eventually bring the two communities face toface in a way that had never been done before during or after 1920 and the establishment of NI.
Err “made things worse”
‘The Irish community in the North’
As a sentimental old republican I object to that description. All the people of the North are Irish people, not just Catholics.
Most Catholics did not vote for Sinn Fein while the war was ongoing, as republicans know only too well. The hope of overtaking the Stoops in wartime was not achieved.
But what do SF stand for now? (As I asked above but nobody was interested – boo hoo! Maybe you all know). In NI they are a communalist party that seems cool about austerity while in the RoI it opposes it and the communalism is irrelevant. It claims to be ani-partitionist but is in a partitionist assembly in NI (and tehy used to reject teh DAil as partitionist). Will it become FF mark 2 (populist sort of nationalist)? Or will FF mark 1 revive and stymie that?
Is SF really a socialist party? I suppose it depends on your definition of socialist, are they socialist revoluntiaries or social democrats. If they are social democreat is their room for a soft-left-nationalist party in Ireland? Could they occupy the social democratic ground LAbout has vacated? Then what happens to the nationalism?
Just wondering.
Sorry about the typos, spelling mistakes and grammar!
Good question FergusD. At the moment it seems to be trying to be all things to all men – so it appears to include leftists, nationalists and centrists (and combinations of these) within its ranks. That won’t last forever.
And as you say, if they plump for one part of the market, will there be room there for them?
Then again, despite all that, things are working for them up to now. 16% or so in the Presidential, they’ll be happy with that.
To add to Joe’s thoughts which I wouldn’t entirely disagree with by any means, I’d think it’s too soon to tell. I’ve met and know strong democratic socialists and left social democrats inside it. Revolutionaries? Probably not. But there are also other strands which would be much less progressive.
Is there room for a soft-left nationalist party? I think so. I always thought they’d just about match the WP size – there seemingly being space for a party left of labour to do so at most times across the last thirty odd years, so I’m a bit amazed they’ve doubled that. So does that mean the ULA has jumped into the left of Labour spot or is it that the political structure has fractured compeltely and we’re in a new game entirely.