Can anyone justify the existance of Northern Ireland?

Great Debates
21

Looking at your link Ruadh one has to say that there seems to be no obvious obstacle on religious grounds.

It is only fairly recently that Muslims were allowed access to state funds to run schools in the same way that Catholics institutions have the same access in the UK and that was only after a lengthy legal process.Most of the argument was based around the National Curriculum but that looks as if it was pretty much an attempt to divert things.

As to having rights enshrined in the constitution there are passport issues to consider but that is not impossible to resolve.
You are talking about differant tax regimes and differant state benefit entitlements, there are probably many other things that are not the same, hardly surprising but not one is unsoluble.

In the end it comes down to willpower.

Can you see any other issues that would need to be sorted out ?

22

Ruadh’s link provides only part of what the Irish Constitution has to say about religion. The Preamble begins:

There are several more references to the role of God in affairs of state scattered throughout the Constitution and some stuff about the special place of women in the hom, which might have seemed quite progressive in the 1920s but looks a bit embarrasing now.

23

Tom, the issue at hand (or so I thought anyway) was whether the rights of Protestants are constitutionally protected in the Republic. Clearly, they are, even if the Preamble does refer to the Holy Trinity. And I did acknowledge that there isn’t absolute church-state separation. So stop picking nits :wink:

Besides it’s not as though that text really has much effect on the average Protestant’s everyday life here - any more than the Act of Settlement affects the average British Catholic’s. The Church doesn’t run this country. Before the relaxation of the divorce and birth control laws, people who still used the old “home rule is Rome rule” argument might have had something of a point but nowadays the Church’s imprint can barely be seen on the law at all, apart from the pubs being shut on Good Friday, which is a pain in the arse …

24

X-mas day aswell . And yes folks believe it of not the majority of people (including me) I know really are p 'ed off about pubs being closed for 2 days a year.

Back to the OP .

The situation is this , no matter what people outside NI think or hope for the only people that can decide the fate of NI are the people of NI . Unfortunatly a large amount of the politicians up there are still playing the old game of hate-mongering and scare tactics. This allied with the pain that both sides have inflicted on each other has ensured that NI will remain part of the UK for the forseeable future .

25

Jesus, things have changed. Whatever happened to going out the front door and walking around to the back (or just using the back) !!

Must be this Celtic Tiger economy thing…

26

With the amount of money that has been put in to keep NI afloat one wonders if Eire would welcome the arrival of an economic millstone.

The longer that peace keeps up the greater the chance of inward investment.

IMHO it has been an aim of the various protagonists to discourage industrial development so that there is a large unemployed and discontent reserve from which to draw recruits.
The fact that Protestants cherry picked what was left is no doubt a great source of resentment.

27

Let’s turn the question around - can anyone justify the existance of the Republic of Ireland? As it happens, there are strong grounds for supporting its claims to nationality, as it meets most of the criteria usually used to measure claims of that sort, such as:

(1) Ethnic origins. A bit of a dodgy one this but, even so, the Irish have a reasonable claim to be of separate descent from the English etc. Problem: the majority of the population of Northern Ireland can claim to be of separate descent from the Irish.

(2) Language. The Irish can claim to have their own language, Gaelic. Problem: the majority of the population in Northern Ireland speak only English. In practice, most of the population of the Republic speak English.

(3) Religion. The Irish are predominantly Catholic, whereas the population of the rest of the British Isles are predominantly Protestant. Problem: the majority of the population in Northern Ireland are Protestant.

(4) Cultural identity. The Irish feel themselves to be different from the English etc. Problem: the majority of the population in Northern Ireland feel themselves to be different from the Irish.

(5) Self-determination. A majority of the population on the island of Ireland wanted independence from Britain. Problem: a majority of the population in Northern Ireland didn’t and still don’t.

Two other factors might be cited:

(6) Historical administrative unity. The whole island of Ireland was long considered a single administrative unit. Problem: the idea of Ireland as a single administrative unit was largely the creation of the English conquest.

(7) Aboriginal rights. The Irish got there first. Problem: how long do settlers have to have been settled somewhere before they can claim equal rights - one generation, two generations, ten generations… The English colonisation of Ireland is old as the English colonisation of North America.

(7) Geography. The obvious argument. Problem: this can never be decisive. Does the United States have a claim to the rest of the North American peninsula (Canada and Mexico) on the basis of geography? The idea that an island must form a single country would prevent Scotland or Wales ever claiming independence from Britain.

No one would deny that Partition was a cynical political compromise adopted by Lloyd George as the easy way out of what seemed an intractible problem. However, it was also an attempt by Lloyd George to apply exactly the same principles of nationalistic self-determination which he and Woodrow Wilson had imposed on the rest of Europe at the Versailles Peace Conference i.e. recognition of self-rule for historic nations, but, if possible, with boundaries redrawn to accommodate the wishes of minorities. As with Versailles, the results have been rather messy. That’s the price for liberal idealism.

28

Yes, I know I can’t count. That’s what happens when you type posts at top speed.

29

Sorry, Ruadh, I was indeed picking nits, but I was partly trying to make a serious point: it is a principle enshrined in the Constitution that “all actions … of … States” should be referred to “the Most Holy Trinity”. Although this doesn’t interfere with the individual rights of people who do not believe in the Trinity, it does give a certain amount of ammunition to the Ian Paisleys of this world when they want to argue that the RoI is a religious state (FWIW, my own view is that it is less of a religious state than the UK).

Of course, if the words had no practical effect, it would be but a small matter to change them and head off that kind of criticism :).

To take APB’s points in order:

(1) Ethnic origin: Depends entirely on what you mean by “ethnic”. My feeling is that ethnicity arguments almost always end up being circular.

(2) Language: In practice the first language of the vast majority of RoI and UK citizens is English, so the argument falls. Incidentally, the NI Protestants also claim to have their own language, which they call Ulster Scots. As far as I can see, though, it’s just a dialect of English.

(3) Cultural identity: Varies at a much lower level than the nation-state. FWIW, I think that the people of NI have much more in common with each other culturally than they do with the people of GB: same language, history, newspapers, sports, TV programmes, etc.

This begs two questions: By whom and for what purpose? As you rightly point out, the treatment of Ireland as a single administrative unit was the product of British rule, before which Ireland consisted of a number of more or less independent kingdoms (as did England before the Norman conquest). The same applies to India and Pakistan, but nobody would suggest that the two countries should be merged for that reason.

In other words, there has never been an independent sovereign state whose territory extended to the entire island of Ireland.

(7) Aboriginal rights: Depends what you mean by “the Irish”, see point (1).

(7A) Geography: I’m not sure where the idea that an island should form a single state ever came from (a sinister cartographers’ conspiracy, perhaps?), but it’s clearly baseless nonsense.

Incidentally, if Wales or Scotland were to become independent, it would not be from England but from the UK. Contrary to what appears to be the settled opinion of many Americans, Scotland and Wales elect Members of the UK Parliament (the Scots electing more per capita than Wales or the England). Three of the four most senior positions in the UK Government are held by Scotsmen (Lord Chancellor, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary). The Fourth (the PM) is not Scottish but he did go to school there.

Scotland is governed by England only to the extent that England is governed by Scotland. It happens that the population of England is greater than that of Scotland or Wales and so elects more MPs in absolute terms, but you might as well argue that Alaska is governed by California since the latter elects more Representatives and has more votes in the Electoral College. If the UK were to be broken up, it would be a moot question who was getting independence from whom.

30

Pheh. I commented on this earlier: if Lloyd George was so concerned with self-determination, why were the nationalist counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh forced to remain in the union against their wishes? Why did the British renege on their agreement for a Boundary Commission, which would have allowed those two counties plus the nationalist border regions in Armagh, Down and Derry to revert to the Free State? Why were they only willing to abide by the agreement for a Boundary Commission in order to admit the unionist parts of Donegal and Monaghan into the North?

I hate speaking of complicated political issues in simplistic terms such as this, but it’s really hard to look at the facts and events of the early 1920s and consider partition anything more than a land grab.

31

Cf. the situation with Northern Ireland…the British and Irish governments are already co-operating on several aspects of Northern Ireland rule, such as border control and anti-terrorism measures. Perhaps the concept of joint control of Northern Ireland could be raised. Unprecendented, I know, but surely a better solution than just leaving the territory to fend for itself. Also (see thread on “Has peace in Northern Ireland been achieved?”) I think the Northern Ireland Assembly should be given time to mature. IMHO a lot of the posts on this thread have been a bit alarmist. The situation in NI is not the same as it was even three years ago when the main loyalist and republican groups were openly at war. Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionists now sit beside each other in the Assembly, a situation unthinkable only recently. (BTW, there has been little comment in the mainstream UK press about the Assembly…is this a good sign?) Let’s not get too carried away with predictions of “bloodshed,” “worse than the Balkans,” and so on–the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland want peace.

One other comment about the status of Northern Ireland–I’m surprised no one has mentioned the role of the European Union. Both Welsh and Scottish nationalists have expressed the desire to make their countries “independent, within Europe.” If Northern Ireland became independent or a part of Ireland, it would remain a part of the EU. Whatever the record of the EU on the Balkans, I think its reaction to open warfare within a member country would be swifter. Furthermore, any violence would jeopardise NI’s EU subsidies–and politicians on all sides do not want European funding to be cut off.

Just 2 more pence on the debate,

Duke

32

Ruadh said,

I don’t disagree, but that raises the question of why on earth Britain would want to hold on to Northern Ireland.

Duke, The reason for the lack of media coverage of the NI Assembly is that it has hardly met since it was established due to its members’ being unable to agree on what constituted compliance with certain provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.

33

Tom H. I’m not sure you understood my point. Most of what you say simply reinforces it. My position is that the existance of Northern Ireland was justified using exactly the same arguments as were used to justify the creation of the Irish Free State. Those arguments were of course grossly simplfied by both sides but each can claim some validity. The continued existence of Northern Ireland retains some claim to be the least worst solution.

ruadh. It wasn’t Lloyd George who reneged on the Boundary Commission in 1925.

34

TomH, If the UK lost NI from the “Empire” it would be the end of it. Australia and Canada wouldnt be far off, IMHO

as for the Holy trinity referred to in the Irish Constitution, Everyone knows that they are refering to
Paul McStay, John Collins and Jacki Jackonofski.

35

Dariusz “Jacki” Dziekanowski

There’s a blast from the past!

Better than the Holy Trinity of Willie Falconer, Pat McGinlay and Rudi Vata, anyway…

36

APB, My point is that it’s nonsense to try to justify the existence of a country or region. I believe that the OP is only phrased in the rather unusual way it is because of the recent “How do you justify the existence of …” threads and I argued the case at greater length with VarlosZ in the thread about Germany a few weeks ago.

I think that, in the case of established sovereign states, which the RoI clearly is (as is Israel, Germany, Portugal, etc), you just have accept their existence and go from there (“move forward” appears to be the favoured phrase in Irish politics these days). Trying to justify their existence retrospectively (or trying to do the opposite!) on the basis of a bunch of arbitrary criteria is doomed to failure. If you applied your eight principles universally, then you would have to try to argue a lot of countries, from the Netherlands to India, out of exsistence. And if they’re not universal, they’re not much good as principles.

The question we should be asking is not can we justify the existence of NI (it’s not like we’re going to nuke it if we can’t), but whether it should be part of the UK, the RoI, or something else; “an independent Northern Ireland in Europe”, to borrow a phrase from Plaid Cymru.

It was Lloyd George who signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, and it was this Treaty which gave the six counties the right to opt out of the Irish Free State and established the Boundary Commission. The border between Ulster and the Free State was agreed by the British and Irish governments in 1925, by which time DLG had had four or five successors as Prime Minister. I think it was Baldwin (2nd time) in 1925.

37

TomH. This may come as a surprise to you, but I agree with just about everything you say in your post above. I thought I had made it pretty clear that I thought that the eight criteria were arguments which, if not flawed, have to be used with some sense of the complex realities on the ground. The ideals of nineteenth-century nationalism are not ones which we should endorse uncritically.

38

APB, re-reading your original post, I can now see what you were getting at. It does look like I misunderstood you. Apologies.

My only excuse is that the last GD I participated in was this one, in which some people were seriously trying to argue that you could apply those criteria to determine whether a state had a “right to exist” or not.

39

TomH. Apologies accepted.

40

I think you’ve phrased this a bit misleadingly, Tom. The border had been set up as early as 1920 (in the Government of Ireland bill). There was no “Irish Free State” at the time, of course, but nonetheless by the time the Treaty was signed the six counties had ALREADY been “opted out” of the rest of Ireland - and the people of those counties weren’t the ones doing the opting.

It’s true that the Irish signed onto the Boundary Commission’s recommendations in 1925 but they had little choice, as the makeup of the Commission (one Irish representative, one NI representative and a British-appointed chairman) meant they were outvoted.

And, APB, you may notice I didn’t say it was Lloyd George who reneged on the Commission proviso, I said “the British”. I stand by my statement that the border which he bears responsibility for establishing demonstrates that there was something other than the principle of self-determination at work.