Paul Gough - Why Ireland Wasn't a Colony

Stephen Howe wrote in his 2008 article, ‘Questioning the (bad) question: ‘Was Ireland a colony?’:

"Might we usefully think of Ulster in certain periods as a Scots colony, or even Wexford as a Welsh one?"

After 1916 relations between Carson and Redmond improved

Delivering the John Redmond Lecture in April 2012 in Waterford the Minister of State for Northern Ireland the Rt Hon Hugo Swire MP reminded us that if you walk out of the Members’ Dining Room in the House of Commons and turn right you will pass a bust of John Redmond, continue towards the Members’ Library and you will face a bust of Sir Edward Carson.

Degrees of Irishness?

The Rt Hon Timothy Healy, Governor General of the Irish Free State, by Sir William Orpen

'My dear Boy, come and see me whenever you like in the bee-loud glade,' is what Tim Healy reputedly wrote in a letter response to W.B. Yeats, a story told by Lady Gregory and recalled by Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Is the British uniform really foreign?

On April 17 2017 Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy told a Sinn Féin commemoration at the republican plot at St Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork where lord mayors Tomas Mac Curtain and Terence Mac Swiney are buried:

"Let me just make it clear – it is important that we remember those who fought in world wars; those people who were part of the Irish nation but for whatever reason decided to wear foreign uniforms, it’s absolutely legitimate that they should be remembered and should be commemorated."

Diarmaid Ferriter in ‘The Transformation of Ireland: 1900-2000’ wrote:

"Thousands of Irish soldiers, many of them nationalist, fought with the British army, suggesting a high degree of contentment with Ireland’s place within the Empire."

People suggest that Ireland before independence was a mere colony. However as Edward Carson said, Ireland had county councils and representative institutions. And John Redmond said in 1915:

"[Ireland has] its feet firmly planted in the groundwork and foundation of a free nation."

Read my post on Ireland's social revolution here.

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."

TK Whitaker - It is much too naive to believe that Britain simply imposed Partition on Ireland

Diarmaid Ferriter wrote:

"The oft repeated contention was that partition was a British imposition and could only be undone by Britain; that there was no requirement for the Free State, or later the Republic, to come up with a solution."

The religious test to be a teacher in Ireland's schools

More information about the Catholic Teaching Certificate here

I previously wrote a blog post 'Irish teachers must be Catholic missionaries', and I also wrote a post, 'Ireland's sectarian schools' here.

I want to explore this matter further...

Ireland's sectarian schools, Ctd

Ireland has passed a new ‘equality’ law that protects Catholic LGBT teachers from discrimination. Via Mick Nugent here.

"This enrolment policy is clearly discriminatory. Discrimination wrapped up in the language of protecting their own ethos."

Northern Ireland's image problem

Reginald Maudling, a Conservative Home Secretary, reached destination despair with Northern Ireland, as Eamonn Mallie explained. Having hauled himself up the steps of the plane at Aldergrove after his first visit to Northern Ireland in 1972, he declared:

"For God’s sake bring me a large Scotch. What a bloody awful country."

HBO executive Michael Lombardo also derided Belfast. Jeremy Paxman called the city one of the most “benighted” places in the world. Restauranteur Emma Bricknell called Belfast a “laughing stock”.

BBC reporter Julian O'Neil said an “image problem” may explain a fall in visitor numbers to Northern Ireland from across the border. Grayson Perry made a rather downbeat disparaging comment following a visit to Belfast, when he said:

"[Loyalism is] rooted in a vision of Britain that perhaps doesn’t completely gel with the modern 21st century idea of Britain we have nowadays."

Also read this on my Tumblr here.

The 'Despised Tribe' and 'Despised hangers-on'

In a previous post I wrote that Catholic-Nationalists in Ireland can regard Protestant and Unionists as associated with "Saxon and Guilt".

I also wrote about Northern Ireland's image problem and the Reginald Maudlin moment here. I wrote about Unionism's anglophobia here. I also wrote about Ireland's "big, mad children".

In this post I look at how the British press and mainland opinion often looks with low regard upon the pro-Union community of Northern Ireland. Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote in his autobiography, 'Memoir: My Life and Themes', published in 1998:

NIPPLES

Col. Tim Collins, RBAI alumnus and classic NIPPLE

I have written many times before about normal Northern Ireland and the two world's of Northern Ireland, and I've also written about the 'Unionist Gap'. Peter Geogheghan wrote that Northern Ireland is increasingly "janus-faced".

The Life of Brian John Spencer

Watch me painting here

Brian John Spencer is an Irish-British writer, artist and video-maker.

When John Steinbeck came 'back to Ireland'

The website Steinbeck Now notes that John Steinbeck "returned repeatedly to his family roots in Northern Ireland". Steinbeck's grandfather Samuel Hamilton was a Scots-Irish immigrant who settled as a farmer in California’s Salinas Valley in the 19th century. The 1962 Nobel Prize winner's Irish forebears hailed from Mulkeeragh, an area outside Ballykelly in County Londonderry. His grandfather was born on October 7 1830 and emigrated 17 years later, leaving for New York at the time of the Great Famine.

Northern Ireland's Dance, Ctd

Mandan tribal dance - George Catlin (c. 1835)

I previously wrote about the Northern Ireland dance here. MCB alumnus now in Washington Niall Stanage wrote in the New York Times:

The lost Orange of Ireland

Royal Black Preceptory Parade, Cootehill, Cavan, 1920

In a previous post I noted that Martin McGuinness said in March 2015 that "The orange part of the flag is as important as the green", and Gerry Adams said at his party’s Ard Fheis that same year that "We need reminded again and again that our flag is Orange."

James Connolly's angry nativist language

James Connolly, by  Mick O'Dea

Hate and racism is a universal trait - it isn't specifically a Protestant or unionist thing. Irish travellers in Southern Ireland were in Southern Ireland what Catholics were in Northern Ireland, second-class, and thet continue to be. As Willie Kealy said, “We [Irish] have always been a bit racist about Travellers.”

Protestant, planter and guilt. Catholic, Gael and virtue.

Captain John Smith trading with Virginian Indians. Painting by Sidney E. King, National Park Service.

On Slugger O'Toole I wrote that being protestant is often a byword for outsider and guilt, while being Catholic is shorthand for Erin and virtue. In that I wrote:

The Unionist Gap

In a previous post I wrote about 'The political orphaning of moderate unionism'. And here I wrote about Catholic Unionists.

I also wrote about the Unionist Gap here.

Irish nationalism's xenophobia against long settled Protestants

Sinn Fein MLA Phil Flanagan tweeted:

"Unionists didn't have a problem with immigration when their ancestors descended on Ireland to grab land from the native population..."

While, republicans don't have a problem with immigration, so long as it's not protestant immigration to Ireland of centuries past. As Eoin O'Malley of Dublin City University wrote in the paper 'Populist Nationalists: Sinn Fein and redefining the 'radical right'':

"Nationalism in Ireland cannot sit easily with anti-immigrant bigotry (as long as the immigrants are not long settled Protestants."

William Walker versus James Connolly

William Walker was a self educated shipyard worker from Belfast (apprenticed as a joiner in Harland and Wolff). Born in 1871 he founded and led the Independent Labour Party in that city. He died after a long illness in 1918.