Recent news from North of the border is worrying. Every day seems to bring a fresh attempted bombing, while last night witnessed a suspected arson attack on an Orange Lodge in Co. Tyrone. Disturbingly, we seem to be witnessing a slide back into violence, a slide that is being led entirely by dissident republicans.
While the thugs themselves would probably claim that their escalating campaign is part of a just crusade against British occupation, most people would dismiss their violence as nothing more than the activities of slow-witted bigots. The recent case where an independent republican councillor in Kilkeel in Co. Down, Martin Connolly, refused to condemn an attempted attack on his niece (a PSNI officer) and her baby daughter, would seem to support such a rash generalisation. After all, nothing says illogical hatred like tacitly supporting attacks on your relatives for spurious political reasons.
However, what seems to be regularly overlooked is how this violence is linked to the economic crisis gripping both North and South, and in particular, the after effects of the collapse of the property market. At the height of the boom, 1 in 4 men in the Republic were employed in building or building-related activities; unsurprisingly, these workers now make up a significant chunk of Ireland's 466,000 unemployed. So, we have a sector which employed a disproportionate number of young men, many of whom were unskilled or early school-leavers, who became used to inflated wages (and the self-esteem that comes with working) and now have nothing to do, and are getting by on social welfare.
Inevitably, a tiny fraction of those who now find themselves at a loose end are drawn to political violence, if only because it gives them a purpose, a code, a set of beliefs that they can hold onto and say "This is who I am, I matter". Witness the reluctance of Cllr. Connolly above to codemn the attack on his niece; condemnation would undermine one of the primary planks of his (warped) set of of beliefs. Throw in the ability to blame our economic woes on the Brits, and the "puppet" Free State government in Dublin, and you have the sort of heady cocktail that produced such lovable movements as the Nazis and the Falange.
If things are bad now, just wait and see what happens if David Cameron decides to trim public spending in the UK further, and focusses on Northern Ireland as a prime place to cut into the fat.
We can only hope that the vast majority of Northerners, both Catholic and Protestant, can face down the unthinking bloodlust of these so-called "republicans", and build the sort of community that they deserve after so many years of suffering.
Showing posts with label Northern Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northern Ireland. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming...
...with a lower corporation tax rate for Northern Ireland. That loud banging you can hear is the last nail being hammered into the coffin of the Republic's economy. Currently, the North has the same rate as the rest of the UK, i.e. 28%, versus the Republic's 12.5%. I think it's safe to assume that the Stormont administration will push for a rate as close to the Republic's as possible, and London will give it to them, as hopefully it will get private sector business in Northern Ireland moving and reduce the almighty strain the 6 counties place on the national purse.
So then, let's see, we will have two economies competing with one another, with comparable corporation tax rates, one with a minimum wage of £5.80 per hour , the other with a minimum wage of €8.65 per hour (£7.20). Plus, energy is cheaper in the North.
Hm, I wonder who will win?
So then, let's see, we will have two economies competing with one another, with comparable corporation tax rates, one with a minimum wage of £5.80 per hour , the other with a minimum wage of €8.65 per hour (£7.20). Plus, energy is cheaper in the North.
Hm, I wonder who will win?
Labels:
corporation tax,
economy,
Ireland,
Northern Ireland,
United Kingdom
Thursday, July 15, 2010
It is old but it is beautiful, and its colours they are fine
Settled down on Monday night to watch the edited highlights on the BBC; highlights not of the World Cup, but of the annual "Glorious 12th" demonstrations (i.e. parades) held North of the border by the Orange Order. As a southern Catholic, I have to say the whole thing seems, well, a little bizarre...
I can totally see the appeal, though. On the BBC, the coverage seemed to show a great family day out, children sitting on their fathers' shoulders to get a better view of the proceedings, mothers pushing prams, ice-cream, chip vans, the usual sights and sounds of any summer festival. It seems that the Order's efforts to turn the day into a tourst spectacle are making progress, creating a little slice of Nordicana (NI Tourist Board, that's copyrighted!), something you can get nowhere else in the world. But oddly (and I'm sure this thought will make the Order and many Northern Protestants feel they cannot win) it's when the parades are in their happy-clappy inclusive mode that underlying ethnic and religious messages are most stark.
You see, what struck me about the television coverage is just how normal your average Orangeman is, how the families watching the parade could have been down South watching a St. Patrick's Day Parade, how basically they were all just like me, and my family. Except that everyone taking part in the parades was Protestant, and that while Catholics might be allowed (indeed, encouraged) to watch the parades go by, they would never be allowed to join a lodge. Even if I convert, most lodges will not allow former Catholics into their ranks. The common bond of shared humanity, of living on the same island, is only allowed to extend so far.
I can think of few organisations in the British Isles where religious segregation is so strictly enforced (the only one that leaps to mind is the Catholic mirror-image of the Orange Order, the Ancient Order of Hibernians). And what is truly surprising is how this desire to identify with fellow Protestants extends far beyond Northern Ireland; one of the points made in the broadcast was that lodges from the Republic, in Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Dublin/Wicklow had grown in size over the last number of years. Do Protestants in the South feel that their identity is under threat? Is there, in modern multi-cultural Ireland, a growing desire among Protestants to have their culture recognised as a key component of society as a whole?
And what of the Orangemen who had travelled to the North from Canada, Liverpool and the US - what role does their Orangeism play in their nations. Are they merely seeking to express another facet of their identity, or do they truly feel that all Anglo-Saxon nations are bound in a common bond, one of whose key strands is Protestant faith?
N.B. The title is taking from "The Sash", one of the best known marching tunes from the Orange Order marches. Apologies if I have been too general in addressing the issues at hand, corrections and complaints welcome! On a related note, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival from Amazon of Blood and Thunder: Inside an Ulster Protestant Band by Darrach MacDonald.
I can totally see the appeal, though. On the BBC, the coverage seemed to show a great family day out, children sitting on their fathers' shoulders to get a better view of the proceedings, mothers pushing prams, ice-cream, chip vans, the usual sights and sounds of any summer festival. It seems that the Order's efforts to turn the day into a tourst spectacle are making progress, creating a little slice of Nordicana (NI Tourist Board, that's copyrighted!), something you can get nowhere else in the world. But oddly (and I'm sure this thought will make the Order and many Northern Protestants feel they cannot win) it's when the parades are in their happy-clappy inclusive mode that underlying ethnic and religious messages are most stark.
You see, what struck me about the television coverage is just how normal your average Orangeman is, how the families watching the parade could have been down South watching a St. Patrick's Day Parade, how basically they were all just like me, and my family. Except that everyone taking part in the parades was Protestant, and that while Catholics might be allowed (indeed, encouraged) to watch the parades go by, they would never be allowed to join a lodge. Even if I convert, most lodges will not allow former Catholics into their ranks. The common bond of shared humanity, of living on the same island, is only allowed to extend so far.
I can think of few organisations in the British Isles where religious segregation is so strictly enforced (the only one that leaps to mind is the Catholic mirror-image of the Orange Order, the Ancient Order of Hibernians). And what is truly surprising is how this desire to identify with fellow Protestants extends far beyond Northern Ireland; one of the points made in the broadcast was that lodges from the Republic, in Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Dublin/Wicklow had grown in size over the last number of years. Do Protestants in the South feel that their identity is under threat? Is there, in modern multi-cultural Ireland, a growing desire among Protestants to have their culture recognised as a key component of society as a whole?
And what of the Orangemen who had travelled to the North from Canada, Liverpool and the US - what role does their Orangeism play in their nations. Are they merely seeking to express another facet of their identity, or do they truly feel that all Anglo-Saxon nations are bound in a common bond, one of whose key strands is Protestant faith?
N.B. The title is taking from "The Sash", one of the best known marching tunes from the Orange Order marches. Apologies if I have been too general in addressing the issues at hand, corrections and complaints welcome! On a related note, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival from Amazon of Blood and Thunder: Inside an Ulster Protestant Band by Darrach MacDonald.
Labels:
Catholic,
Northern Ireland,
Orange Order,
Orangeism,
Protestant,
the Twelfth
Friday, July 9, 2010
Good Quality Terrorists
Bored and aimless as I often am, I spend an inordinate amount of time browsing the interweb, often ending up on a site called Politics.ie, which specialises in what an American "friend" of mine would term "leprechauny politics" (thankfully, he has received his just punishment, and is now languishing in a position in SE Asia which he does not enjoy, and which does not test his immense skills and intelligence. Ha ha, leprechaun that, Hantmonius!).
Anyway, bitterness aside, yesterday I was flicking through said website and I came across the following thread:
And what of the character of the young men flocking to join the enemies of America and the UK - what sort of social profiles do they fill? It is well-known that many of the 9/11 hijackers were highly educated, and represented the "elite" of the societies from which they are drawn. What of the Taleban and its allies in Afghanistan: are their recruits the elite of their societies? Could they be passing up better opportunities in life in order to fight in a holy war? Or are they simply thugs (as some people in both Ireland and Britain would both view the IRA) who lust for violence, and if there were no war handy, would still be harming their fellow man, albeit without the cover of a political or religious goal?
Anyway, bitterness aside, yesterday I was flicking through said website and I came across the following thread:
"The quality of young people joining the IRA was very impressive.." MI6 agent.
This got me a-thinking: what of the modern threats faced by the US and UK forces in Afghanistan and Iraq; do the coalition allies view the Taleban or Al-Qaeda in Iraq with the same grudging respect shown by some of the British military and intelligence figures noted in the above thread. I seem to remember the brilliant Wings Over Iraq blog had a video of a Taleban ambush in Afghanistan that didn't exactly go to plan, and showed up the boys of the old martyr's brigade to be less than professional. But at the same time, stories such as Taliban sniper hunted over seven UK deaths would seem to suggest that at least some of the Taleban are clearly capable.And what of the character of the young men flocking to join the enemies of America and the UK - what sort of social profiles do they fill? It is well-known that many of the 9/11 hijackers were highly educated, and represented the "elite" of the societies from which they are drawn. What of the Taleban and its allies in Afghanistan: are their recruits the elite of their societies? Could they be passing up better opportunities in life in order to fight in a holy war? Or are they simply thugs (as some people in both Ireland and Britain would both view the IRA) who lust for violence, and if there were no war handy, would still be harming their fellow man, albeit without the cover of a political or religious goal?
Labels:
Afghanistan,
IRA,
Iraq,
MI6,
Northern Ireland,
Taleban,
terrorism
Saturday, July 3, 2010
My Daily Commute - A Journey Through History!

Image taken from Strange Maps
Those of us condemned to the drudgery of commuting to and from work every day usually have very little to contemplate as we zone out for the journey to the office. Until recently my commute was like any other, unremarkable and dull. That was until I moved to Monaghan...

Now, to most eyes, my commute may still seem humdrum. True, it's a pleasant 30 minute drive through rolling drumlins and pastoral countryside, via the towns of Monaghan, Smithborough, Clones and finaly Belturbet. But what I find interesting about this drive (in a remarkably nerdy kind of way), is that I cross the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic 4 times, and for a short half-kilometre section of the road I am in a virtual enclave of the Republic within Northern Ireland, which has no direct contact with the rest of the state, but rather can only be accessed by road via the North. Effectively, this means that this semi-enclave cannot easily be reached by An Garda Siochana (the Irish police force), nor can it be patrolled by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. While it is not exactly lawless, this pocket of territory has been used for a number of nefarious activities over the years, and it is still apparently the place to go locally if you like cockfights or other bloodsports (who doesn't?. I mean, c'mon, nothing says a classy evening to me like bloodsports!)
Similarly, each morning you can see the "donuts" burned in rubber onto the road by young men with too much horsepower and not enough brains, who zip along this border route in the dead of night, safe in the knowledge that for police in the South, without road access to the enclave, speed traps here would be a logistical nightmare, while on the Northern side of the border, police checkpoints run the risk of attracting violence from dissident Republicans.
What strikes me most, though, are the signs scattered along this route as to how artificial the border is, not just from a Republican viewpoint, but also how the division of our island has resulted in communities that once contained both Protestants and Catholics, Unionists and Nationalist, being divided, with one section of the community artificially removed, or withering away over time. In truth, this phenomena has seemed to be far more common among the Protestant community on both sides of the border; in the South, communities which had been in the locality for nearly 400 years have slowly disappeared since 1922, marrying into Catholic families or choosing to emigrate; while on the Northern side of the border the change has been more rapid, as the inter-religious violence that coloured the Troubles has led some Unionists to pull back from areas bordering the Republic, retreating further North to where greater numbers of their co-religionists live.
One of the most poignant signs of this change is a Church of Ireland (Anglican) church located in the enclave in of the Republic, but which I would guess would have been built over the course of the late 19th Century to serve the community in the area. It stands alone, a long way from the nearest village (which is now in Northern Ireland), and only once have I seen any activity at the church, a funeral. Judging by the mourners, the deceased that day was obviously of an older generation, and I noticed that every car parked outside this church, which was remember South of the border, had Northern plates. I couldn't but wonder had the deceased grown up in the area, either before or shortly after partition, when there still would have been a sizable Protestant community. Now, were they being returned to the church where they worshipped as a child, mourned by friends and family who had also felt that it was necessary to leave this place all those years ago? Was this area a place where they could not live, but could only return to in death?
In Belturbet, too, the town where I work, there is signs of a once thriving community now gone; an Orange Hall that is now only empty and unused, restored by the Irish state with a view to being turned into a museum. The local pub has a picture of the main street taken in 1910, in which one can clearly see, hanging from a house, the sign "UVF Meets Here" (the UVF being a Protestant paramilitary organisation opposed to Irish independence.) And while, as an Irish Catholic, I obviously find the basic premise of Protestant supremacy, on which the Orange Order and the UVF are based, difficult to stomach, these little hints of people now gone still make me wonder could partition and its aftermath not have been better handled. What position would the island be in now, if the Southern state at least had done more to calm the concerns of its Protestant population? Would we closer to unity or still divided? And, as a Southerner, am I just naive in my thinking?
If you would like to learn more about the enclave and are, like me, a bit of a nerd, see the great discussion at Strange Maps.
Labels:
Catholic,
Monaghan,
Northern Ireland,
Partition,
Protestant
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Shades of Grey
A real problem in Irish (and indeed European) commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict is that we exist in a world where things are black and white. There is only good and evil, nice things and bad things. We are cocooned from anything nasty and brutish, and so snuggled are we by the welfare state that we do not understand that much of mankind faces the distinct possibility that life will be cut short.
In some ways, this gulf between us and the truly harsh realities of life allow us, the Irish, to be remarkably generous and sympathetic to those in need, or those who are in a weaker position than we are. The most obvious, and clichéd, examples would be the growth of the charity sector in Ireland, particularly with those charities who work in the Developing World; or how Ireland was one of only 3 EU states to open its doors wide to immigrants from the states of Eastern Europe on their accession in 2005. These issues were relatively black and white: starving Darfurians clearly deserve help, and poor immigrants looking for jobs in wealthier nations obviously struck a chord with the Irish.
But our ability to engage with issues on the international stage is degraded when rights and wrongs are less than clear. Witness the vitriol aimed at Israel over this last week; justified, in so far as storming the ship in question was clearly wrong. Yet while many Irish commentators have much to say on the wrongs of Israel's blockade, and the wrongs of Operation Cast Lead last December, they seem to feel that Hamas firing rockets into Israel, or the threats continuously emanting from Tehran, are not worthy of comment.
Clearly, much of what Israel has done recently is wrong, whether judged from a moral, political or security standpoint, but it can only be prevented from committing these wrongs by improving that state's security situation, something that can only be achieved once the rockets stop falling.
Irish desires to castigate the Israelis do nothing for the greater good of the Middle East; it is purely an exercise in judging the region by the standards we expect of Western Europe, where terrorism is rare, and air raids or rocket attacks rarer still.
It is reminiscent of the disgust and distance with which southerners viewed the Troubles in the North; yes, the violence was appalling, but could our moralising, safe in the 26 counties, really do anything to bring peace between Nationalists and Unionists? Did we not recognise that, if circumstances were a little different, we as individuals could be capable of the hatred and violence we witnessed north of the border?
Until all parties were brought to the table, free from recriminations and arguments about, literally, who started it, nothing was achieved in the North. And if we expect that peace in the Middle East can be achieved by putting pressure on Israel alone, it would appear we have already forgotten the lessons of our own recent history.
In some ways, this gulf between us and the truly harsh realities of life allow us, the Irish, to be remarkably generous and sympathetic to those in need, or those who are in a weaker position than we are. The most obvious, and clichéd, examples would be the growth of the charity sector in Ireland, particularly with those charities who work in the Developing World; or how Ireland was one of only 3 EU states to open its doors wide to immigrants from the states of Eastern Europe on their accession in 2005. These issues were relatively black and white: starving Darfurians clearly deserve help, and poor immigrants looking for jobs in wealthier nations obviously struck a chord with the Irish.
But our ability to engage with issues on the international stage is degraded when rights and wrongs are less than clear. Witness the vitriol aimed at Israel over this last week; justified, in so far as storming the ship in question was clearly wrong. Yet while many Irish commentators have much to say on the wrongs of Israel's blockade, and the wrongs of Operation Cast Lead last December, they seem to feel that Hamas firing rockets into Israel, or the threats continuously emanting from Tehran, are not worthy of comment.
Clearly, much of what Israel has done recently is wrong, whether judged from a moral, political or security standpoint, but it can only be prevented from committing these wrongs by improving that state's security situation, something that can only be achieved once the rockets stop falling.
Irish desires to castigate the Israelis do nothing for the greater good of the Middle East; it is purely an exercise in judging the region by the standards we expect of Western Europe, where terrorism is rare, and air raids or rocket attacks rarer still.
It is reminiscent of the disgust and distance with which southerners viewed the Troubles in the North; yes, the violence was appalling, but could our moralising, safe in the 26 counties, really do anything to bring peace between Nationalists and Unionists? Did we not recognise that, if circumstances were a little different, we as individuals could be capable of the hatred and violence we witnessed north of the border?
Until all parties were brought to the table, free from recriminations and arguments about, literally, who started it, nothing was achieved in the North. And if we expect that peace in the Middle East can be achieved by putting pressure on Israel alone, it would appear we have already forgotten the lessons of our own recent history.
Labels:
foreign policy,
Ireland,
Israel,
Northern Ireland,
Palestine
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