Henry Cooke and Catholic Emancipation (1825)

Henry Cooke

It is ever the case that Unionism and its avatars are presented as bigoted and regressive, while nationalism and its icons are liberal agents of change. Never has this clash of ideas been better encapsulated than with the Henry Cooke-Daniel O'Connell standoff. Yet O'Connell wasn't necessarily the paragon of enlightenment and liberation that he is automatically projected as. As Mick Hall and others have noted:

"Yet Daniel O’Connell, within five years of achieving Catholic Emancipation, stated that Protestants were “foreigners to us since they are of a different religion”."

Nationalism's failure to allay Unionism's fear of Rome Rule

Rev. Joseph Hocking

In a previous post I wrote that Edwardian Ireland was an apartheid state. I also wrote about the conciliation-omission of nationalism prior to the frustration of Home Rule, and I also wrote about the culpable neglect of republicanism post-partition to understand unionism or communicate to unionism the merits of unity.

Windsor's leadership in Northern Ireland

Steve Bell on the Queen's visit to Ireland, May 18 2011

The great cliché of this post-Saint Andrews age has been that unionism has no leadership. George Bernard Shaw once said that unionism is like a military without an officer class, there remains a degree of truth in this to this day. 

The new age of "Perked-Up Unionism"

The republican movement may represent an insurgent force in southern politics and present itself as a party of protest even while holding power in Northern Ireland, yet unionism still holds ascendency.

The classic trope of Northern politics is that nationalism represents confidence, which unionism represents demoralisation.

It seems the status quo has inverted. For Fionnuala O'Connor, we are living in the age of "perked-up unionism" and "stale nationalism". Fionnuala O'Connor wrote in the Irish News, February 9 2016, ‘We could be all be into a new political era without noticing’:

The RUC - For protestants they were friends, and for many Catholics they were vicious foes

Sir James Bernard Flanagan, a Catholic and Chief Constable of the RUC; and Michael McAtamney a Catholic and Deputy Chief Constable

Declan Kearney recently wrote in 'Uncomfortable Conversations':

"Seeking unionist repudiation of British state forces and the RUC is as unhelpful as demanding republican repudiation of the IRA."

John G. Ervine on Carson and Irish Protestants

John G. Irvine by William Conor. Also see a cartoon of John by David Low here.

As Martin McGuinness morphed from violent separatist into an unswerving constitutionalist, the Irish protestant St. John Greer Irvine journeyed from Home Ruler to a staunch Unionist. 

The Irish republican fight is with with Irish monarchists, not England

The Mad Bull (James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon and Michael Collins) by Sir John Bernard Patridge (1922)

I previously looked at the anglophobia of unionism on this blog, and on Slugger O'Toole. Here I look at how republicans misunderstand unionists, as typified by what David McKittrick wrote: "If it weren’t for the unionists, [the British] would leave right away."