The Irish Times letters page… October 12, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.trackback
It’s very difficult reading the letters page of the Irish Times not to come out sounding like Martin McGuinness’s most uncritical supporter, but you know when faced with this…
In view of the comments being made by various persons on some of the candidates from another jurisdiction, would it not be well to ensure that, in future, candidates should represent the people here? It seems to me most unusual to nominate a candidate from another jurisdiction to such a sensitive position.
…one moves close to that position. Because the sub-text of so much of that sort of argument is one which is the very antithesis of democracy, not to mention an absolute inability to understand concepts such as citizenship, whereby everything is directed towards shutting it down. I need hardly point out the ludicrous irony of someone in a state with a two-term President from this supposedly ‘other’ jurisdiction making such a statement.
And then, what of this?
Noting your extensive coverage of an oath taken by Dana on acquiring US citizenship, in addition to her ongoing Irish citizenship, could you devote at least as much space to the oath taken not to a democratic, law-based State but to an illegal, secret, armed, criminal conspiracy, taken by Martin McGuinness when, as he admits, he joined the Provo IRA? Also, give us the full text.
And let us know how you escape from or can revoke the obligations implied under that IRA oath, as well as what penalties apply for breach of that secret oath…
Given that the IRA has disbanded, and been seen to do so by an internationally supervised process, all of this is moot. But it would be in any event… Sinn Féin signed up to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, an event in our history that a raft of the great and good appear to have forgotten took place in 1998 and have equally apparently close to zero understanding of its importance and ramifications.
By the way the letter writer of the above appears to share a first name and surname with someone mentioned here in comments…
And if all this weren’t enough, and again with the point about the GFA/BA in mind, what of this…
Sinn Féin may appear to be a valid alternative, but the time for kneejerk reactions is not suitable now, nor will it ever will be. The Germans turned to Hitler and the Nazi party in times of trouble in the 1930s – that was their kneejerk reaction. If the Irish are capable of learning anything from the present predicament it should be that the future political system must lie with the citizens – it must empower the citizens – not the politicians.
Remember this – it isn’t too long ago that members of that party justified the brutal cold-blooded murder of a member of this nation’s police force.
Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing. They haven’t gone away.
Don’t hold back now…
But yet again all it seems to be is part and parcel of an underlying dynamic of trying to circumscribe choice. There are plenty of reasons people in good faith can resile from voting McGuinness, but these?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Not that I’m at all pushed about the McGuinness candidacy either way, but I think the letters above could be reasons to simply not vote for him, rather than some anti-democratic thing.
Besides, if the oath issue is valid for Dana, it’s also valid for McGuinness, since the IRA hasn’t actually disbanded. Again, I think there are far better reasons not to vote for Dana or McGuinness than some legalistic interpretation of an oath they took a few years ago…
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The IMC and two governments agree that the Army Council is nomlonger operational or functional. You’d wonder how great the distinction between that and disbanding actually is.
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I’m with Pidge on this. I don’t believe the IRA has disbanded. But it suits all involved in the process to go with the line that the Army Council is no longer operational. I’m happy to go along with that too and long long may it continue.
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Another letter writer commented on the gender-specific litir um thogchán received in the post from Mitchell:
“Sir, – I was taken aback when we received Gay Mitchell’s presidential campaign literature in the post on Monday. My husband received a flyer focusing on the economy while mine referred to his childhood and his experiences as a volunteer with a charity!
Am I beyond being spoken to about the “economy” and has my husband no concern about “children” and “community”. Why have we been stereotyped by Mr. Mitchell?”
I had noticed that we received two differently coloured Mitchell litirs in the post the other day, but hadn’t realised the differentiated messages as I had deposited them straight in the recycle bin.
No doubt someone in FG thought this was a good idea. F***ers.
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Snap! I did exactly the same without reading it.
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Just the one addressed to yourself, or both?? I do admit to political censorship in my own household, but in part it’s down to experience, she never reads then amyway…mind you the latest LooLeft got a quick flick through and positive comments on the artice about the proposed ESB privatisation. Progress…
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Theres 3 different Mitchell ones. A Blue, a Yellow and a Green one, each with a different message on the back and different picture of Gay on the front.
Oh and I winced as I read “as I had deposited them straight in the recycle bin.” 🙂
I’ve the blue and green ones posted and the yellow one is being dropped in to me by a local FGer this evening 🙂
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Both. I don’t need to censor FG stuff 😉
IELB, I assumed you’d get them too. It never struck me you’d need one.
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Same here. I thought the wife got the green one because she’s a culchie. On another note, I got a letter yesterday from FF HQ in a Seanad envelope with a newsletter and other info on the party. Perhaps someone’s taking the piss? Anyway, the woman who answered the phone in Mount Street wouldn’t pass me on to whoever’s responsible.and appeared upset that I wouldn’t want their material through the letterbox. At our collective expense.
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Theres no pattern to the Mitchell leaflets. Its random. Young ,old, male , female, rural urban all getting one of the same 3 leaflets
As for the FF stuff …. is it burnt yet? 🙂 ….. wouldn’t mind a copy .
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Hypocritical, hysterical partitionist guff from most. I’m more intrtested in what Sinn Fein have to say about economic and social policy though. When Phil Hogan suggested McGuinness
would frighten off multinational investment, McGuinness listed off a line of top US business men who he knew personally. Do SF have anything to say about the Wall Street protests?
(came across this on another thread)
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YeP, the patriotism gets to me too. Very true re asking about ecgnomic issues.
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With The Irish Times I think its mostly confined to the Letters page, although some Columnists have had goes at McGuinness. Martyn Turner has had a few cartoons that don’t reflect well on McGuinness either.
The Indo seems to have a new anti McGuinness front page headline almost every day and thats before you even get to the Letters page.
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Who cares about Martyn Turner? Crap overrated cartoonish. And a pro-Euro west brit to boot.
Come to think of it, that is really the IT.
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West Brit?
That seems such an antiquated insult.
Do you mean he’s one the anglo-irish landed aristocracy, or simply that he doesn’t go along with nationalist politics?
I don’t know. Yer man Owen was banned here the other day for expressing borderline homophobic and anti-foreigner views.
Shouldn’t west brit be considered in the same category as wog or paki, i.e. a dismissive and insulting categorisation of a person on the basis of their ethnicity?
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Interesting question LATC [though mind you I thought Owen crossed the line with his elision of DN and pedophilia]. I don’t think west brit is as bad as the examples you cite, not least because it’s not as essentialist as them in terms of its meaning. But that said I’m not fond of it as an expression so yes, can I ask people to please not use it.
Turner, who IIRC is English, so nothing west about it, I find irritating because he’s seems so smugly Irish very slightly leftish middle class. But that’s just me.
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Shouldn’t west brit be considered in the same category as wog or paki, i.e. a dismissive and insulting categorisation of a person on the basis of their ethnicity?
There’s a significant difference I think, between racist/ sexist/ homophobic epithets and calling someone a ‘west Brit’ (or a Hun) – in the former, the name calling is not just name calling: it’s performative and not simply ascriptive speech – it doesn’t just say ‘you’re black/ female/ gay’ , descriptions which are not in themselves offensive, however phrased: what it says is ‘you’re black/ female/ gay and thus you are, because of that single fact, definitively inferior and because I’m white/ male/ straight, I’m better than you, simply because I’m not that’. And thus, like ‘with this ring I thee wed’ or ‘I arrest you’ or whatever, in the speech act, something actually happens, and a power relation is instituted or reinforced: if it was simply name calling, the associated humiliation would be out of all proportion, but in fact, the humiliation is the object and point of the exercise – calling someone a n*****r or a f*****t is meant to ‘put them in their place’.
In contrast, using derogatory language towards your social ‘superiors’ (in the sense of objective economic/ social prestige) is negligibly significant: because, whereas, racist/ sexist/ homophobic attitudes actually have significant and drastically damaging effects on the lives of real people, I doubt if anyone have ever suffered much from being considered ‘a west Brit’ (though it’s undoubtedly rude, and almost certainly unnecessary)
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SoS, I take your point and commend you on the fullness and depth of the analysis. Where I’d still differ with that perspective is that while it would appear that the relationship is one of ;inferior’ and ‘superior’, that in fact it’s the opposite, in the context of the nationalist and catholic nouveau-ascendency of the post-British state. Those being categorised as west brits (protestant, anglo-irish) are very much a minority and certainly in the early years of post-independence, and during the more recent northern “troubles”, were nervous of their position in this society, and to some extent fearful of their physical security. So to that extent their ‘superiority’ was historical and debatable. Like any minority community facing uncertainty of their position within a larger society, they have an entitlement to expect the majority to respect the differences and to denounce casual use of derogatory name calling which carries overtones of unresolved historical conflict. In my opinion.
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Isn’t the difference between calling someone a Paki or a n**ger and calling them a West Brit is that the first is something you are from birth, the second is a belief that you espouse? West Brit means essentially a (southern) unionist, deriving from the term ‘North Britain’ which Scottish unionists used at the time of the Union of 1707 and during the 18th century. You could conceivably stop being a West Brit, but you can’t stop being Asian or black, Michael Jackson notwithstanding (or notwithsonofstanding).
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@LATC,
Guess you’re right about that particular context – although the phrase long predates independence, I think: O’Connell used it IIRC?
On the ‘essentialism’ point; I’m always nervous about this, though I find it hard to exactly state why….
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Australians have a term, ‘cultural cringe,’ which they apply to manifestations of mental colonisation – whereby local achievement is considered only in terms of the values of the mother country. Is the ‘West Brit’ label not applied mainly to those who tend to do that here?
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I prefer ‘horse protestant’.
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Are you sure that Protestants in the Republic did indeed feel the way you characterise them LATC? As someone with a partially Protestant background I’ve always felt that was overblown. There’s no doubt that there times when it could be uncomfortable – though fearful of their security, really, any time since say the very first years of the state? But I’d be dubious it was ever as bad collectively for them as periods during the preceding regimes were for nationalists and Catholics. And I’d still be very dubious that west brit is a Protestant appelation as much as one applied to a cultural mindset which is far from being Protestant.
To be honest as someone with a British or English background as well I found that growing up that was much more of an issue albeit on a fairly trivial level. I never was called a Prod, though being sent to both Mass and Service probably had a confusing effect on observers, but I surely was called a Brit.
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WBS, apparently there was a shooting near here in the 70s, a retired British army colonel. I can’t find any reference to in online unfortunately. But my immediate neighbour (anglo irish, whatever about west brit) has told me that she lived in fear of her life during the 70s. Apparently there was a fair but of PIRA activity locally, some of the disappeared from up north were buried in the local bog for example. MacStiofain lived down the road in the local Gaelteacht, though I suspect it was after his peak. So the local protestants were nervous let’s say, which I’ve heard from a few neighbours, not all of them anglo irish. I have to say that growing up in suburban Dublin I was unaware of any anti-protestant sentiment, but maybe it was different down the country, or maybe north Meath is an exception. I take your point totally that your own experience doesn’t tally with the local history down here.
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I’m sure you’re right that there were differences depending on area. That said I think actual incidentswere very infrequent in the south, whatever the perception – so it might be a case of where an incident did occur there was heightened perceptions of fear, but that that was disproportionate both to the number of incidents and the likelihood of anything happening subsequently. Interesting to get chapter and verse on that retired BA person.
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Yes, I must check out that story.
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i saw the one today, ‘sf empolying four youths and mcguinness surrounded by people that you couldn’t see him in hooddies vests and tatoos. was that tactic used before in a govoner race in america vaguely remember hearing something about it before.
obviously he’s trying to impy an image of Shinners as violent tuggery but theres snobbery in it as well and in that will work for alot of people. but the arogance of it he’s impying this is the real SF by inverting the image, putting mcguinness out of sight and a sterotypical view of the average SF member or supporter in the image with conotations. if someone wears a hoodie out of penny’s its because its practical and affordable not because i want to beat some one up, if someone has a tatoo its because its socialy acceptable where we are and apriciate the work or the symbolism not because they want to beat someone up i like the game of the shinners putting mcguinness up but with this shit really hope he does well just to put them in there place.
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My understanding of west brit is as a slag of Irish born people not English but who regard the Irish and Irish culture ie language and music and all things GAA as backward and not as sophisticated as our Neighbours.I think it’s preserved as a slag against the Hooray Henry types, as a rangers supporting unemployed citizen of Dublin no matter wether he was born in Irl or UK would never be deemed a west brit.
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He would be deemed a hun. A nervous hun.
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+1. Please don’t ban the use of the term. Not one i’d use, it obviously grates with some, but does form part of common republican phraseology for opponents in the South and in that sense is republican vernacular. Vernacular is interesting and insightful.
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If someone here starts usihg fenian bastards to label nationalists then that’s ok too, because it’s just vernacular?
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I’m a fenian bastard, and proud of it. So no, not feeling the oppression here at all.
Btw, “or simply that he doesn’t go along with nationalist politics?”. Whatever do you imagine this default neutral political stance in the absence of “nationalist” (I’ll let that one slide) politics to be, then? Inquiring minds, etc.
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EWI, post-nationalist, anti-nationalist, inter-nationalist, socialist, take your pick.
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“I’m a fenian bastard, and proud of it. So no, not feeling the oppression here at all.”
Perhaps you might feel the oppression if your minority community was 5% or less of the overall population, or if the ethos of the state was hostile to your community’s role in society, much as was the case for fenian bastards north of the border until relatively recent times.
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I’ve been called a fenian bastard quite often by pals, and I’m not.
A fenian that is.
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LeftAtTheCross, you seem under the impression that “West Brit” is synonymous with southern Protestant. I do not think it is. In my experience “west Brit” is an insult aimed at somebody who would be expected to be a nationalist due to their religious or family background ( such as Conor Cruise O’Brien or John Bruton) but does not espouse the expected position. Using “West Brit” as an insult against Anglo-irish ascendency types is a bit redundant as most consider themselves somewhat British already abyway. If your main problem with the term “West Brit” is that it is picking on the Protestant minority in the south, would I he right in assuming that you would be ok with the term “castle catholic” , were it were to come back into vogue?
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Logan,
I had to use wikipedia for “castle catholic” as I wasn’t familiar with it. I wouldn’t have any problem with using that phrase, no.
As to “anglo-irish ascendency types” considering themselves “somewhat british”, some may still do so, some don’t. In my experience here in Meath, with some of them as immediate neighbours, their kids attend school in this state, they don’t get sent off to boarding school in Britain like previous generations, they play GAA as well as rugby and cricket, they support the RoI football team, they support Meath in the GAA, they read the Irish Independent and the Irish Farmers Journal, vote for FG, you know, just like their catholic nationalist neighbours. They are “Irish” as much as anyone is, although not from nationalist background. As a well integrated minority community they have every right to expect respect from the majority.
Any self-regarding “republican” who uses the phrase “west brit” to dismiss that community is doing no service whatsoever to Tone’s (sorry YC!) vibe of unity of catholic protestant & dissenter, and is displaying a low-level rascism that is wholly inconsistent with both multi-culturalism and socialist internationalism.
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I think that’s a fair point, I’ve never felt west Brit had a Protestant aspect to it and my antenna in that respect with part of my family background would be high. But that’s not to say it wouldn’t be used by some as such. I wouldn’t in response to above ban it but again just ask people to avoid using it if possible.
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One answer to the “another country” jibe, would be the demand that the third estate be regulated (as in no monopolies) and under Irish Control. Mr. O’Reilly and Mr O’Brien are afaik ex-pats.
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I am not quite sure I would accept the designation of Anglo-Irish in quite the same genetic way you do, LeftAtThecros. If they send their children to Irish schools and their children play GAA, they are not Anglo-Irish anyway, (albeit they might be descended from people who were) so claiming that the are an “integrated minority community” is a nonsense.
I hope you are not claiming that Anglo-Irish is synonymous with southern rural Protestant, becasue I have a lot of Protestant relations (middling-sized farming stock from the midlands) that would take issue with that!
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Logan,
no, I’m not saying all rural protestants are anglo-irish. Some of the former converted in the 19C, took the soup as it were, and are ethnically irish. But they still get tarred with being west brits for being protestant, the ethnic distinction is lost in the mix.
So, it’s nonsense is it to consider southern protestants an “integrated minority community”? Do you want to expand on that? Do you dispute the “integrated” bit, the “minority” bit, the “community” bit, or the whole thing lumped together?
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Would you like to expand on what you mean by `ethnically Irish’?
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LeftAtTheCross, I do not know if you are being disingenuous or not , of course I never claimed that southern Protestants were not a “minority community. What I actually said was that your designation of “anglo-irish ascendency types” as a “minority community” was incorrect as i do not believe such a designation exists, unless you were conflating “anglo-irish type” with “southern Protestant”. It was ME that brought southern Protestants into the conversation, not YOU!
Not you have done a flip, and are pretending that you were talking about southern Protestants all along.
If anything, all this shows is that you are completely confused between the various meanings of “West Brit”, Anglo-Irish” and “southern Protestant”, and seem to have mushed them all together in your head as meaning the same thing.
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Just as some form of differentiation from their co-religionists who are descended from the colonisers / invaders / planters / settlers (or whatever term you prefer) who might be described as “ethnically British”.
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Not you have done a flip, and are pretending that you were talking about southern Protestants all along.
See comment above (https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/the-irish-times-letters-page/#comment-106672) where I refer to “Those being categorised as west brits (protestant, anglo-irish)…”.
I’m not trying to be disingenuous, no. I think we’re just arguing about narrow or broad interpretations of the phrase west brit, what sections of the population it does or doesn’t include.
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Isn’t it really rather simple? If one uses n word for black people, we know there are people whose skin tone tends to dark pigmentation as opposed to pink’ish, and one uses the n word to denigrate a whole raft of people which by a simple duality self-indicates an unwarranted superiority for the claimant.
Afaik, there is no tribe born west brit, nor a mono-culture, caste, or even coherent political formation in the 26 counties. There is no predetermined material construct upon which the term west brit can be assumed. Rather, there are a seemingly few people in the 26 counties who believe Ireland should not be independent, or only partially so, and who claim our neighbor should control our sovereignty. Quite often the direct statement or underlying insinuation is that Irish culture, such it be, is somehow inherently inferior.
Being called a west brit in Ireland is analogous to being called a socailist/commie/pinko in the US; especially during a discussion. It’s used as a game changer and a conversation stopper; the one uttering the words derogatorily knowing that the majority of people may not agree with a personal stance on universal health, say, but can rely on an in-built set of capitalist assumptions that represents the majority consensus.
In other words, we use such terms when we can’t argue our corner coherently and with material conviction. So, I tend not to use such terms (except for capitalists, hmmm), but I’ll be damned if I let anyone censor my use of it.
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It’s a lazy term but not I thought sectarian. Those whom are labelled West Brits were generally born catholic eg Harris and CCOB
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When someone says West Brit I automatically think of Kevin Myarse.
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I’m GAA-averse, mortified by some of the small town parochialism that we revel in, and have no problem with the principle of unionism. I guess I’m supposed to be a west brit on that basis, but I’ve an equal problem with rugby, soccer, and a long list of British traits. Can’t I just dislike the whole lot and McGuinness’ particular brand of parochialism, without running the gauntlet of name-calling? Anyway, McGuinness likes Dad’s Army, so that negates pretty much everything he has to say on any subject.
And (back on topic) don’t we currently have a president from another jurisdiction, complete with dual citizenship? How soon we forget.
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“McGuinness likes Dad’s Army”
I’d like a reference for that please!
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Pat Kenny had Gerry Stembridge following McGuinness around on the campaign trail for his radio programme. When asked what comedy he liked he said his faves were Dad’s Army and ‘the one with Del-boy”.
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Ah, Dad’s Army isn’t that bad… 😉
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Who do you think you’re kidding?
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Mr. Hitler…
… or rosy tinted nostalgia at its worst.
Actually, I haven’t seen DA in donkey’s years. There may be a reason for that.
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“I’m GAA-averse, mortified by some of the small town parochialism that we revel in, and have no problem with the principle of unionism. I guess I’m supposed to be a west brit on that basis, but I’ve an equal problem with rugby, soccer, and a long list of British traits.”
That about sums me up too. And as a result my wife frequently calls me a “sassenach bastard” (rather than a west brit). I read recently a piece (I think on the WSM website) suggesting the notion of a homogenous Irish-speaking, GAA-playing, Catholic identity was cultivated heavily in the 1880s as a sort of cultural nationalism, and that anything ‘other’ was to be considered un-Irish. There’s possibly something in that, although I have to wonder how people like Parnell and Hyde would fit into that logic.
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Irish Nationalism was inclusive rather than ethnic exclusive to a large degree. I hope to see people with non trad. names line up for Meath in Croke Park and win awards for Irish dancing.
With the GAA (warts and all) the money goes into amateur sport. Surely a “socialist” thing.
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I like the class observation in Dad’s Army, and Private Frazer is a great character, but it just wasn’t funny for the bulk of it’s run. But that’s true of most of Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s output – it’s the tofu of comedy – not bad per-se, just banal.
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Yeah, that’s true.
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but it just wasn’t funny for the bulk of its run.
This is completely wrong (although it is true of some of their other work). There is a certain time-and-place about it, and it’s a very English show, but funny, it was.
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It’s a sensibility thing, no? I can recall great episodes but also terrible ones.
Actually while were talking about UK comedy I caught yes, Prime Minister for the first time in ages the other night. What surprised me was how long it went on into the 80s. 88 it ended I think. I always though I started earlier than I did and ended earlier too.
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“It was a good idea to partition countries like India and Cyprus and Palestine and Ireland as a part of their independence. It keeps them busy fighting each other so we don’t’ have to have a policy about them.”
– Sir Humphrey
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Many a true word said in jest… 😦
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Don’t panic,don’t panic,the complete box set is now available.Love that show.
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Why do the West Brit elitists who dominate this republic not wish
Martin McGuiness? The Irish Political Review (the ONLY Irish
journal which understands Irish politics) explains why:
McAleese, advancing her career in Belfast and Dublin by veering this way and that in opportunist adaptations, retained the chip-on-the-shoulder resentments of Hibernian nationalism. McGuinness, provoked into political action by the dysfunctional and undemocratic statelet, dealt with it straightforwardly, in war and peace, from a republican perspective which did not see the Unionists as aliens. And he established a degree of functionality by establishing a political relationship with Ulster Unionism which, a generation ago, the Unionists were certain they would never agree to. This makes McGuinness a statesman….
And he evades another issue with his statement about the “proud and continuous tradition of democracy extending more than 90 years”—the political tendency to which he belongs committed itself to the establishment of Fascism in the Free State in the 1930s. Fine Gael began its life as a Fascist Party. It was defeated in that project by Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein and had to resign itself to being a party in a Parliamentary system.
And most important of all IMO:
The Irish Republic has lived in a morass of confusion about the North, neither being able to act purposefully towards it as part of its own responsibilities, nor to detach itself from it as being foreign. However, Northern Ireland has entered the political scene of Ireland for the first time since Independence. First, with the election to the Dail of the Northern-based leader of the all-Ireland party, Sinn Fein; and now with the candidature of the serving Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. The issue of partition has thus moved from the realm of rhetoric and wish-fulfilment into practical politics. It is now more necessary than ever for the body politic to get an idea of Northern Ireland. It will not go away.
Everyone who cares about our nation and its place in the
world should throw away their copies of “Look Left” and
“Socialist Worker” and read the IPR instead.
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“McGuinness, provoked into political action by the dysfunctional and undemocratic statelet, dealt with it straightforwardly, in war and peace, from a republican perspective which did not see the Unionists as aliens.”
Not as aliens, no. As people it was acceptable to shoot and blow up
in a pointless terror campaign, yes.
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Always good to know that the IPR doesn’t hold a grudge. The jibe at McAleese is because he sued Brendan Clifford when he alleged that she only got a professorship at Queens because she was a Catholic (and a woman) while poor old David Trimble lost out, due to anti-protestant discrimination. Since then the ex-BICOites have referred to the president of the republic as ‘unbalanced’ etc. Same people who called campaigners for the Birmingham Six ‘professional paddys’; nice to see they are so radical now.
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“Everyone who cares about our nation and its place in the
world should throw away their copies of “Look Left” and
“Socialist Worker” and read the IPR instead”
I suspect that you’ll find that many of the people who read or contribute this site also read all three of those hallowed publications, at least from time to time. Although it has to be said that the IPR is on my reading list more in the expectation of entertainment than in the hope of enlightenment.
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The orignal use of the term ‘West-Briton’ does date back to Daniel O’Connell. But it was made popular as an insult by D.P. Moran and his newspaper The Leader in the early 1900s. It was used to describe a whole range of people, from Home Rulers to Unionists, but for many cultural nationalists it particuarly applied to Irish people who enjoyed English sports or foreign entertainments. It was often used to write off almost all Dubliners, and the urban population of small towns, who were seen as lost to Britishness. In that sense, Martin McGuinness, with his love of cricket and Manchester United (and Dad’s Army!), is a classic, early 20th century ‘West Briton.’
Many of these insults- ‘Shoneen’ ‘Sour Face’ ‘Castle Cathawlic’ were applied liberally to all sorts, by people who were certainly not republicans, such as Moran himself, who defined Ireland as Gaelic and Catholic but had no interest in republicanism. Indeed many contemporary republicans, whose birthplaces were in Manchester, Liverpool, New York and elsewhere, or who played cricket, rugby and soccer, did not live up to the exacting standards of Irishness demanded by the cultural nationalists.
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On the subject of IRA membership: Didn’t De Valera, Sean Lemass, and the rest of the WOI generation
always admit they were in the Old IRA when they were interviewed?
And there’s also the cause of the 1916 Proclamation signers, even
though it turned out to be a death sentence for most of them.
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From the IPR editorial (on web):
‘If Fianna Fáil is to recover it will have to rediscover its self-belief. Since the General Election the Party has engaged in a period of reflection. This has taken the form of accepting that “errors” occurred (though their precise nature is never specified). But it is in danger of learning the wrong lessons. Party organisation is one element of Fianna Fáil’s renewal. It is necessary but is not sufficient and is certainly not where the problem is to be found. The grassroots must have something to believe in. The Party can only recover if it defends its pre-1970 legacy, which is in effect the era of de Valera. It also must defend against unjust attack the elements which have gone into the making of the nation: the Republican legacy, the Trade Unions; the Public Sector; the GAA; and the Catholic Church.’
So the left should be advising FF on how to recover?
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It’s a plan 😉
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“The Party can only recover if it defends its pre-1970 legacy, which [i]is in effect the era of de Valera[/i].”
Good example of “weasel words” here- “in effect” means ruling out the
fact the last part of the party’s pre-Legacy was made by Lemass
and Lynch (the latter is one of the many, many, many, many people the
Athol Books group have heaped abuse on).
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