The terrible ignorance of Ireland's unionists

Northern Ireland is the subject of a "terrible ignorance" by the people of the Republic of Ireland. This allows misunderstandings to linger and suspicions to fester. There are stereotypes of what an Irish protestant is like, as I wrote here, but these are incorrect. I wrote in my article, 'A Terrible Ignorance':

"Not only did Ireland of the twentieth century airbrush the constitutionalist tradition, they erased the avatar of a loyal Irish-British person and burnt the hard-drive. 

My Irishness is not singular and prescriptive, I’m Irish and British. Two buckets are easier carried than one, so I stand in-between. 

The unorthodox views of the northern protestant are never considered by the south. The Irish suffer willed amnesia when it comes to the loyal Ulstermen and women who are British and Irish."

Ian Paisley was a proud Irishman

Ian paisley wrote:

"Edward Carson was a life-long Irishman, as well as being a life-long unionist,and that made all the difference… On this 28th day of September [2012], 100 years after his pen touched parchment, we salute the man who taught us all how to be true Irishmen and women."

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Kyle Paisley

Kyle Paisley was born in Belfast in 1966. He was educated at Greenwood and Strandtown Primary schools and Shaftesbury House. Then later educated at Whitefield College of the Bible, Lawrencetown. Kyle now lives in Oulton, Suffolk. He is the minister of Oulton Broad Free Presbyterian Church.

Christopher Hitchens on Northern Ireland, Ctd

A generation of journalists cut their teeth in Northern Ireland covering the Troubles: Robert Fisk, Max Hastings, Jeremy Paxman, John Simpson and Kevin Myers. You can add Christopher Hitchens to that incomplete list.

The Calvinist Ulsterman is more of a Catholic Irishman than is commonly realised

Cartoon by Ian Knox

G.K. Chesterton wrote in his book 'Irish Inpressions':

"The Calvinist Ulsterman may be more of a Catholic Irishman than is commonly realised, especially by himself."

Jack Kyle on Ian Paisley

Jack Kyle, rugby player and surgeon, born on February 10 1926. Aged 88 he passed away on November 28 2014.

[UPDATE - Read my essay on Jack Kyle and free speech in Northern Ireland published by Eamonn Mallie here]

We know him as the rugby great and for his work as a doctor. But Jack Kyle was also a man of letters and ideas. Throughout his life he shared comments on the Irish Question that were lucid, forceful and profound. 

On rugby in Ireland he said, "There was never any religious business about rugby. That was the wonderful thing about it." At more length, he said about Irish rugby:

"That was the wonderful thing about [Irish rugby, the absence of religion]. When the various unions were splitting up, the Irish Rugby Union said: “we play as one country”. Those of us from Ulster were very fortunate that happened. It was also a much greater honour for us to play for the whole country. I think it says a lot that during all the Troubles, never once did a southern side fail to come north or a northern side fail to go south."

Unionism won

Cartoon by Ian Knox (@ianknoxcartoon), see more here.

Peter Taylor said:

"Who really did win the war? Viewed through the prism of the present, it’s clear that the British and the unionists won, because the Union is secure and the IRA is no more… I wouldn’t be surprised if at some stage in the long years ahead a United Ireland did emerge."

The "Troubles" is a term for the conflict that began in 1916, ended with an ambiguous armistice in 1998 and rumbles on to this day

Cartoon of David Trimble and Gerry Adams by Steve Bell

[UPDATE - "Unfortunately, the "terrible beauty" they [Pearse and Connolly] spawned is even now to be seen in action in the blazing streets of Belfast" wrote John Banville]

Philip Bobbitt said that "Long War" is a term for the conflict that began in 1914 and concluded in 1990. Christopher Hitchens said the identical, that the global conflict that began in August 1914 did not conclusively end until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.

My argument is that the Troubles should be a term for the conflict that began in 1916 and quasi-concluded in 1998 with an ambiguous armistice, embedded a little further in 2005 but continues to this day with an uneasy truce.

He's a quick overview of history.

We are deluding and damaging society if we cannot speak freely of the public dead

Cartoon of Paisley with Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan, Thatcher, Major and then Blair and Ahern. By Ian Knox.

[UPDATE* - Ed Moloney spoke about the passing of Paisley on New York radio here, and said among several rich comments that "Although Brian Faulkner was brought down by a broad coalition of Loyalists, the scene was set years before that by Paisley’s agitation."]
[UPDATE II - Clifford Smyth wrote on Ed Moloney's blog that when Paisley began his political career in the 1960s Northern Ireland was a stable and peaceful society and Irish Republicans were reflecting on why the IRA campaign waged between 1956 and ’62, had failed, and how a reshaped strategy might succeed.]


Compulsory praise, homage and adulation. The scurrilous sanctimony of it. I've written about it three time before, the death eiquette (here, here and here), and will go one more time. When Paisley passed, there was as expected, and on schedule, a mass outbreak of moist and dewey eyed encomium and panegyrics. A bombardment of hagiography and neuteured, one-sided reqiuems. Pure, leader-reverent propaganda. Total distortion. Total self-delusion of the worst most self-harming kind. If the man was a thundering bigot, incubator and mobiliser of hatred for over half a century that needs ruthless examination and full public acknowledgement.

Yet death in Ireland is a time for seeing only good and burrying the bad. Fintan O'Toole wrote about it and said:

"Death is one of the things we do well in Ireland. There is a decency, a kindness, a communal instinct to try to lessen a family’s grief by taking a little bit of it onto ourselves...

The protocol, convention and etiquette for public figure deaths

Scanlan's Monthly cover by Ralph Steadman of Richard Nixon getting punched

When a prominent public figure dies we are guaranteed a steam train of piety and praise. The media will compliment where compliment is due, this is right, but it is wrong for the media to allow any public figure eulogy to go unchecked. There must be a recognition, public airing, examination and learning from the bad, their wrongs and their mistakes, their misrule, misdeeds and misbehaviour. The deceased public figure is not untouchable, the deceased public figure is not a sacred cow; a unifying consensus of reverence does a disservice to the public and to posterity.

I will punch that sacred cow. Yet the establishment wont. Glenn Greenwald calls this The Protocol For Public Figure Deaths.  A convention and etiquette that outlaws honest criticism and imposes a vow of silence. In his obituary for Christopher Hitchens, Glenn Greenwald criticised both the convention of non-criticism and Hitchens himself,  saying here:

"The death this week of Christopher Hitchens and the remarkably undiluted, intense praise lavished on him by media discussions... Hitchens was an extremely controversial, polarizing figure. And particularly over the last decade, he expressed views — not ancillary to his writings but central to them — that were nothing short of repellent. 

Subordinating his brave and intellectually rigorous defense of atheism, Hitchens’ glee over violence, bloodshed, and perpetual war dominated the last decade of his life. Dennis Perrin, a friend and former protégée of Hitchens, described all the way back in 2003 how Hitchens’ virtues as a writer and thinker were fully swamped by his pulsating excitement over war and the Bush/Cheney imperial agenda: 

I can barely read him anymore. His pieces in the Brit tabloid The Mirror and in Slate are a mishmash of imperial justifications and plain bombast; the old elegant style is dead. His TV appearances show a smug, nasty scold with little tolerance for those who disagree with him. He looks more and more like a Ralph Steadman sketch. And in addition to all this, he’s now revising what he said during the buildup to the Iraq war."

And so:

"Nobody should have to silently watch someone with this history be converted into some sort of universally beloved literary saint. To enshrine him as worthy of unalloyed admiration is to insist that these actions were either themselves commendable or, at worst, insignificant. Nobody who writes about politics for decades will be entirely free of serious error, but how serious the error is, whether it reflects on their character, and whether they came to regret it, are all vital parts of honestly describing and assessing their work. To demand its exclusion is an act of dishonesty.

Newton Emerson - Ian Paisley, Ulster nationalist

Ahead of tonight's screening of Eamonn Mallie's documentary on Ian Paisley, it's worthwhile to look back at what Newton Emerson said of Paisley's Ulster nationalism on BBC Hearts and Minds in June 2007 here:

"In an interview with last Saturday's Irish News, he blamed the Troubles on British government betrayal, complained that English politicians know nothing about Irish politics, claimed that Dublin is more generous than London. Ian Paisley appears more matey with Bertie than Blair. Furthermore, he lauded his relationship with Bertie Ahern because, and I quote, "I am an Ulsterman and he is a southern Irishman. We know how to talk to one another." 

The simplest explanation for Paisley's ambivalent Britishness is that he is really an Ulster nationalist. He's certainly flirted with advocates of an independent Northern Ireland throughout his political career - but these flirtations have never gone further than fond kiss goodnight.

Live Drawing - #DUP13 Conference

Sluggerotoole caricaturist brian john spencer will be at arts council stand over lunch. Come along #dup13 pic.twitter.com/jmb59Y9BaW
— ArtsCouncilNI (@ArtsCouncilNI) November 23, 2013

The Arts Council Northern Ireland asked me to come an draw DUP politicians and delegates at the DUP Conference 2013. See my drawings at the Arts Council NI workshop day at W5 in the Odyssey Belfast here.

Christopher Hitchens, segregated schools and Northern Ireland

From 43 minutes Christopher Hitchens discusses the segregation of societies through special faith schools, using Northern Ireland as a disastrous example of what can happen. The host began with a question:

"We would distinguish the cowardice of the Archbishop of Canterbury from the murderous violence of Ayman al-Zawahiri - would that be a fair distinction?"

Christopher Hitchens responded:

"No, because the Archbishop has pre-arranged his capitulation to them (Muslims). He thinks they're people of faith. The Archbishop of Canterbury says: 

I don't care if there are schools in England (this is happening now) that are run by al-Zawahiri supporters. I don't mind it. As long as you allow special schools for Christians and Jews and also special different schools for Protestants and Catholics. If you allow faith schools, we'll allow them to have faith schools.

Christopher Hitchens, religion, Northern Ireland and its "Barbaric, sectarian party leaders"

[From 4 minutes into video]

At an Intelligence Squared debate from 2007 (held around the same time as the furthering of the Northern Ireland peace agreement) Christopher Hitchens used the province and its capital city, Belfast, as an example of why religion is bad.

In explaining his position he said that the situation was still driven by "barbaric, sectarian party leaders." 

A fascinating observation from an outsider looking in. An outsider whose been to Belfast a good few times; knows people who've been here; knows the history and the context and is just general supremely intelligent. 

And yes I do know that he proclaimed support for a United Ireland. But he also thought Gerry Adams and other killers were depraved scumbags, writing in Slate Magazine here:

"...The main force that opposed it [peace and equal rights] eventually was the Provisional IRA, which gladly accepted the sectarian challenge and which preached the insane idea that Irish Protestants could be bombed into some deranged concept of a Fenian republic."

So the Republican outlet Irish Central was premature to use Hitchens' support for a United Ireland for their propaganda.

Full video from debate here. 

Northern Ireland is growing ever more Catholic, ever more Diverse

Graphic from Irish Times available here.

It's becoming ever more clear that the old order in Northern Ireland is dying out. No longer are protestants in the numerical ascendency; rather that section of the community now falls under the growing shadow of the youthful Catholic class.