Sinn Fein is "the Irish for John Bull"

Cartoon by Morten Morland (2003), via the British Cartoon Archive

Presently in Northern Ireland Sinn Fein has worked to make itself synonymous with progress and positive. They have done this to the detriment of Unionism and the wider protestant culture, both of which are perceived as cold and narrow minded.

Sinn Fein and the wider Catholic population are associated with Ireland and virtue; while unionism and wider Protestant culture are associated with Britain, wrongdoing and intolerance.

We're nearly at the point that if you oppose Sinn Fein you are a bigot.

I simply don't agree with this. In fact there's a mirror relationship between the two radical Irish fringes - The Irish unionist and loyalist (Not an Inch Carsonism and Paisleyism on one side, and on the other the Irish republican armed separatist, Sinn Fein. Opposite and equals in their fixed narrowness. Alex Kane said:

"The most ironic thing about Sinn Fein is that they are the worst possible advertisement for Irish unity. Indeed, they are the exact mirror image of that element of unionism/loyalism that is the worst possible advertisement for the Union."

George Bernard Shaw wrote about Sinn Fein in 1917:

"When people ask me what Sinn Fein means, I reply that it is the Irish for John Bull."

He also wrote:

"I shall therefore begin by demonstrating to the entire satisfaction of Ulster that the Sinn Feiners are idiots. I shall then demonstrate to the satisfaction of Sinn Fein that the Ulster Impossibilists are idiots.

Further he wrote:

"The Ulster talk and the Sinn Fein talk are both mostly baby talk."

I wrote the following on EamonnMallie.com:

"An Ipsos MORI poll found that that while 61% of Fine Gael voters favour resettling migrants from the sub-Sahara, 70% of Sinn Féin voters are opposed to welcoming fleeing migrants. 

It would be useful to remember this next time there’s a racism scandal coming from a loyalist estate. As Kevin Myers said: 

“While Shinner leaders speak fluent ANC, their followers think like embattled Voortrekkers.”

A report on the Republic of Ireland found that migrants to Ireland face discrimination and assault. As 2016 fast approaches and people talk of the “ideals” of the men of 1916 we should look at the writing on the movement people by one of the main men, James Connolly. The Marxist wrote in early 1916 a three part series entitled, ‘Slackers‘.  

In Part I, published February 5 1916, Ireland’s venerated martyr Connolly called migrants to Ireland “hordes” and a “swarm of locusts“, “boys of the bull-dog breed” and “Brit-Huns”."

Pete Shirlow said in his address to the 2017 Sinn Fein Ard Fheis:

"We do studies at the University of Liverpool on the electorate. The majority of protestants support equal marriage. If you look at that data, and I presented that data to the British-Irish parliamentary group, a unionist MLA went "nonsense! nonsense! nonsense! nonsense! That is not true! The protestant people do not support equal marriage." A Sinn Fein person turned round to me like Victor Meldrew and went, "I don't believe it." Why would you not believe that? Because things are changing. That same data tells us something very important. Protestants under the age of 40 are pro-Union, they are more pro-choice, more equal marriage, more mixed marriage, and more supportive of integrated schools than Sinn Fein voters. If that comes as a surprise to you, you must ask the question, "why?" 

He also said:

"The idea that being pro-union is inherently sectarian is not only wrong it is inherently sectarian."

John Hume said the same thing in 1964:

"We must be prepared to accept this and to realize that the fact that a man wishes Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom does not necessarily make him a bigot or a discriminator."

Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote in his autobiography, ‘Memoir: My Life and Themes’:

"I didn’t in fact think that the unionists in Northern Ireland were any more bigoted than nationalists. But because for historical reasons unionists’ bigotry tended to be uninhibitedly expressed, while nationalist bigotry tended to be covered over with layers of pseudo-ecumenical rhetoric, outsiders - British, American and other - tended to find nationalists nicer and more "reasonable” than unionists, a perception which has been greatly to the advantage of the former."

He wrote in the Irish Times in 1996:

"I feel that unionists are essentially besieged. They’re under a pan-nationalist siege, of which the main stimulus is being supplied by Sinn Fein. So I don’t see it as my job to get out and annoy unionists. I think they’re been annoyed quite enough."

Also, to say that a Catholic has a better sense of fairness and justice is simply wrong. Look at at the conservatism and even intolerance of Catholics throughout history and presently in other countries. It is easy to be for equality when you're a Catholic and in the minority, but examples of Catholic majoritarianism has shown that Catholic does not mean fairness and equality.