Fearing 1921

What a strangely revealing article by Eoghan Harris this weekend in the SI. He writes about the current travails in relation to government formation – in passing lauding his own excellent predictive powers, as he sees it, in ruling out a grand coalition and then neatly pivoting to the question as to why there should be no such entity. Some of us will wonder at the following:

there are three reasons why Micheal Martin is correct in saying that a full partnership is not in the national interest.

First, it would ruin the stable structure of Irish politics – the firm foundation provided by alternating Fianna Fail and Fine Gael governments, with Labour switching between.
Second, a grand coalition would be a domineering dinosaur that would be hard to dislodge and would petrify Irish politics for a whole generation.

Though this is hardly any less curious:

Finally, and most fundamentally, a grand coalition would ensure the rapid expansion of Sinn Fein in Opposition.

Uh-huh. But what is the problem? Well…

“all responsible parties should be worried by the rise of a cult party like Sinn Fein”.
Certainly the public is worried. The General Election results showed that a substantial majority deeply distrust Sinn Fein.

And why is this distrust – if correct – justified?

As I keep pointing out, apart from the economy, the national question is the only game in town.
Sinn Fein is the tribal incarnation of the national question with its cancerous obsession with the North and the fourth green field.
The national question goes dormant during good years. But a recession sees it ready to rise again, red in tooth and claw.
Fast forward five years to the 1921 centenary commemorations of ambush and atrocity, and find a grand coalition fighting a general election while coping with an economic crisis.
How would that grand coalition handle Sinn Fein giving us Bloody Sunday every bloody Sunday?

Now think about what he is saying here. It is a line that CCOB and others put forth time and again, that the people in this state (and on this island) who mostly could be described as mildly nationalist are gullible consumers of any message at all who will be swayed by atavistic impulses beyond their control to… well what? What does he think is a likely outcome?

A restart of the conflict? He surely can’t believe that. Okay, less absurd, but still pretty absurd, a toppling of the GFA/BA? That would be near enough impossible (though in fairness the Tories may well precipitate a weakening of it should a Brexit come to pass). What so? Can anyone think of anything that SF in (or out of but the largest opposition party) government could do to materially alter the situation on this island in the faux apocalyptic but tellingly vague way he puts it?