Letter from Irish Future leads us to a begrudging united Ireland

WE can be sure Gay Byrne would never have signed the letter, titled Ireland’s Future, signed by 1,000 public figures, telling us that because of Brexit, the reunification of Ireland has moved centre stage.

Gay condemned IRA violence because he knew he was speaking for the

Irish people; apart from that he was trusted because he never took partisan stands.

Nothing could be more partisan than last Monday’s letter in The Irish Times calling for a “conversation” on Irish reunification — but lacking unionist signatures.

Let me pause to set out my own position on Irish unity, which is similar to that of Conor Cruise O’Brien, who predicted the British would eventually betray the unionists.

Like him, in his last days, I believe unionists would be wise to ultimately negotiate, by treaty, a powerful place in a Federal Ireland.

Meantime, they are entitled to be let live in peace under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

That summary roughly represents the current position of all the major

Irish political parties with the exception of Sinn Fein.

But the politics of the Ireland’s Future letter is far closer to Sinn Fein’s position than that of Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.

How can those who signed it not see the letter is likely to lead to further tribal tension because it is basically stirring the sectarian stew?

It is difficult to dissect a letter whose preamble is so delusional in its political assumptions.

Accordingly, I am going to follow Aristotle’s advice in the Rhetoric and consider the messenger before considering the message.

The signatories are divided into vocational categories. Let me take two: media and academe.

In journalism, the most prominent southern signatories are Fintan O’Toole and Tim Pat Coogan.

The most prominent Northern signatory is Brian Feeney whose references to the DUP in a recent book review for the Irish News were shocking even by Northern standards.

Feeney said the DUP played the “traditional role of planter descendants carrying out the will of the imperial capital against the wishes and welfare of the majority of the population”.

That crude “planter” jibe is a regression to the most primitive level of Northern nationalism.

Turning to academe, it’s notable that the signatories are a tiny fraction of academic staff in NI universities and even tinier in terms of the Irish university sector as a whole.

Few of them, in my view, are notable scholars in their academic fields.

Apart from the absence of unionist names, the second biggest lacuna in the list is the lack of some respected names in the Irish trade union and labour movement.

That’s not surprising when we remember the

Irish trade union movement represents Wolfe Tone’s categories of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.

Taking the list in its totality, I would say that in class terms, it’s a classic amalgam of petit-bourgeois intellectuals and artists and the nationalist bourgeoisie.

The prime mover of the Ireland’s Future letter, Niall Murphy, fleshed out his views to Freya McClements of The Irish Times.

Murphy told her it was important that unionist concerns were heard, but he gave no indication of listening to the core unionist political position — the desire to remain as British citizens.

Murphy spoke instead about the need for unionists to be “accommodated”, a weak word which promises unionists a bare tolerance.

He also promised a “warm embrace” for the unionist tradition in his envisaged future Ireland.

But he avoided the passionate position of unionists — to remain part of the United Kingdom.

Niall Murphy also claims that some unionists are involved in private conversations about unity but “lack the confidence” to go public.

This conveniently hides the unrepresentative nature of any unionists involved in these “conversations”.

Let me set out three further problems. First, there is not, as the letter alleges, a “vision for democratic change” in the Good Friday Agreement, which ratified the union as legitimate under international law and Bunreacht na hEireann.

Second, there is not, as Ireland’s Future claims, a “conversation” going on among unionists about their future place in a unitary Irish State. But there is definitely an angry conversation going on about how they’ve been cut loose by Boris Johnson.

Finally, Ireland’s Future seems to subscribe to the “false consciousness” delusion that there is a secret majority of pro-unity unionists in the Protestant population — a delusion that has been around since 1920.

For the pros and cons of a serious conversation about a united Ireland, let me recommend Ronan McGreevy’s measured response in The Irish Times.

He believes the concept of a united Ireland is “ripe for interrogation” — but only if it includes unionists.

He also notes the chasm in understanding between Northern and southern nationalists on the issue of a united Ireland.

And reminds us: “In reality, many in the Republic are hostile or indifferent to the proposition”.

Finally, Tony Blair’s problems with Brexit also apply to the begrudging “reunification” envisaged by Ireland’s Future.

Blair says Brexit won’t fix the NHS, non-EU immigration or broken British politics.

Likewise, what pressing problems will a united Ireland ‘‘fix’’? Literally none.

“What’s Gay Byrne really like?” My mother’s regular question to me back in 1967 when, as a young producer, I occupied the 7 Days office near The Late Late Show, passing him in the corridor with a respectful greeting.

Gay Byrne was teaching earnest young radicals like me that serious current affairs could reach a wider audience when gift-wrapped in the glitter of showbusiness by a broadcasting genius.

“You’ll have to ask Kathleen Watkins that,” was my regular reply to my mother. And I meant it.

Although I knew Gay Byrne as a colleague for 25 years, I knew as little about what he was “really like” as his millions of listeners.

Gay Byrne cultivated a bland genial persona that gave no clue to his private views — and earned trust.

So much so, I suspect only Kathleen Watkins, his sounding board, knew what Gay was “really like”.

Paradoxically, Irish people sensed that reserve and respected and loved him all the more for it, as I did.

Above all, he had what Aristotle called the supreme virtue, as John Caden confirmed in his tribute.

“The most important thing I would want to say about Gay is his unrelenting courage. Most of us have courage for a day, or a week or a year. But Gay faced up to his employers every day of the week and that was part of conducting the modernising of the country.”

That same courage called him to condemn the IRA’s Omagh bombing in Old Testament terms, seeing it as a criminal sin that cried out to heaven for vengeance.

He did not literally mean the IRA should rot in hell. He wanted to show us how much he hated what they had done. As always, he was speaking for decent Irish people like himself.

‘Brexit won’t fix Britain’s problems any more than a united Ireland will fix our problems’