- Jay Ashworth My observation of History has been that having things like that flushed out of what you so lyrically refer to as living memory :-) tends to take between three and five generations. And yes, we're way too close.
And yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable. It seems to comport with other opinions I have heard on the topic. - Alan Petrillo This was originally a comment on a Stratfor thread when another commenter asked me to walk him through my logic. Another commenter on that thread noted that something like 20% of Northern Ireland's workforce is employed by the British Government. That certainly changes the picture!
youtube.comPaul McCartney - Give Ireland Back To The Irish - LyricsPaul McCartney - Give Ireland Back To The Irish - Lyrics
- Randi Lacey As you may know, I have a lifelong love for and bond with Ireland, its music, history and culture. You also know that I was fortunate enough to visit Ireland in the summer of 2007. What you may not know is that I have been keenly following Brexit, and the history of Northern Ireland. I have a Facebook friend named Michael, whom I briefly dated years ago, who was born, raised, and still lives in Derry, NI. I have found his firsthand take on all of this to be very insightful.
Now, having said all that, I have to tell you, Alan Petrillo, that your conclusions are reasonable and well thought out. I also think that reunification is the best route; complete independence, to me, may be asking for the return of the Troubles as much as a hard border would.
While the GFA has brought peace to Northern Ireland for over 20 years, make no mistake: in some ways, it has been and remains an uneasy peace. The riot and killing of the young journalist last week in Derry was apparently perpetrated by The New IRA, a paramilitary group that rose out of the ashes of the original IRA, because there are some that never agreed with the GFA. There is also The Real IRA, The Red Hand, and a couple of others. The peace is fragile, and always was.
We are on the verge of what they call the Summer Marching season, where Protestant Irish (Orangemen) have parades and marches to commemorate the victory of King William of Orange hundreds of years ago. It always creates tension with the neighboring Catholic communities every year, despite the undeniable benefits of the GFA. I fear that anything less than reunification is going to stoke the embers into a deadly bonfire once again.
Of course, as you say, reunification is going to bring it's own set of issues. But if they are handled well, any tensions can be leveled out. This woman, whose ancestry is 90% English and Irish, ardently hopes so. - Alan Petrillo Something which also bothers me is what would happen after reunification. Would people who have spent the past century at war, with that war so ingrained in their culture, be able to lay down their arms once they've achieved their stated goals? Would the various Republican militant groups then turn their attacks on religious minorities? On each other? Would the Ulster Orangemen lay down their arms? Would Unionist parties, like the DUP, accept reunification? Would Ireland turn into a Celtic Sri Lanka?
- Randi Lacey Alan Petrillo, those are all good points to be made. I have thought about that, too. There would definitely be hard feelings. But if reunification happened, at least the reason for the republicans to wage battles would largely be moot; they will have gotten what they've wanted for over a hundred years. How they handle that success, and how they treat their loyalist neighbors, will be the key. The paramilitary groups have, at least to some degree, become criminal organizations. It will then fall on the government of the reunified republic to deal with them. The teens who just murdered the young journalist, Lyra McKee, were apparently member of a faction called The New IRA. Groups like that may be problematic for reasons other than political ones.
As I see it the Irish are facing 4 options, assuming Brexshit proceeds to an actual separation: A land border, which would violate the Good Friday Agreement and possibly trigger a return of The Troubles, A sea border, which would keep Northern Ireland technically still within the UK, but at the same time treat it like a different country, Reunification with the Republic of Ireland, or independence and EU membership.
The land border, violating the Good Friday Agreement, is the worst of all options. Nobody in Ireland wants a land border, not even hardline Unionists. There are a few who would like to chuck out the Good Friday Agreement, and start another war between Ireland and the UK, but they are wingnuts, they are few, and they are stupid. They've listened to /Off To Dublin In The Green/ a few too many times.
The sea border is a slightly better option, but only just. While it would maintain the free association between Northern Ireland and the Republic, it would wind up with Northern Ireland being in a limbo, not entirely part of the UK, but not part of the EU either. In order to maintain the sea border Northern Ireland would have to live by EU rules, but would have no say in making those rules. Further, anyone traveling between Northern Ireland and the UK would have to go through customs as if they were traveling to a foreign country.
Reunification is the option I see as both the best and the most likely one, but it does present a number of very thorny issues that will need to get sorted out. The number of hardline Unionists has been dropping slowly for years. Polls have shown that opinion is slowly drifting in favor of reunification. Brexshit might just push that opinion enough in favor to win a referendum. In order for it to happen, however, the rights of the Protestant minority, and religious minorities in general, will have to be explicitly protected. Further, religious minorities must feel that they are, in fact, protected. Stormont might even have to work out some kind of autonomy deal for Northern Ireland. The Easter Uprising, and the War of Irish Independence are still within living memory, and there are a lot of people born since then whose parents and grandparents participated in those incidents. The Troubles have left deep scars that may never heal, or at least not for another century. While reunification may be the best option, it will not be easy, and is unlikely to be a smooth process.
Independence is, perhaps, a compromise. Northern Ireland would be separate from the UK, but it would also be separate from the Republic of Ireland. This would give Irish Protestants a measure of protection, allow Northern Ireland to steer more of its own course, and deal with its own internal struggles in its own way. While membership in the EU is not guaranteed, it would also give Northern Ireland its own representation in the EP, separate from that of the Republic. Unfortunately, it also faces a number of legal hurdles, it would require cooperation from both Westminster and Brussels, and I don't think many people are talking about it.
Whether the final result is a land border, a sea border, reunification, or independence, the road ahead for Ireland will be neither smooth nor straight. Fortunately, the Irish are both tough and resilient, and they will make it through this.
I hope this lays out my opinion sufficiently well.
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