Change is coming and Republic needs to talk to North about it
As a new Ireland emerges, conversations must involve those living on both sides of the Border, writes
WHEN RTÉ’s Northern editor Tommie Gorman was being interviewed about his retirement on The Late Late Show, host Ryan Tubridy recalled the times Gorman appeared from Belfast on a split screen alongside a colleague in the studio in Dublin. “It was like two different continents,” Tubridy said.
The remark betrayed an attitude which Northerners perceive as an indifference at best in the Republic towards Northern Ireland.
It echoed a comment last year by Claire Byrne in a podcast with Sunday Independent journalist Rodney Edwards, when she said that the Northern troubles were far removed from her dayto-day existence. “It was as alien as Israel, almost,” she said.
After partition, the Republic soon became largely socially distanced, and as the Troubles unfolded in the final part of the 20th century, the North was put into isolation as far as many in the Republic were concerned. But we live in different times, and as momentum grows over what a new Ireland might look like, much of the focus has been on the need to encourage unionists to join the conversation.
There is another problem: the Republic of Ireland isn’t fully engaged yet either, often to the frustration of those who want to address the values that would underpin a new Ireland, however that might be shaped constitutionally.
Apathy, indifference, natural reluctance to change, hostility towards a troublesome North, a refusal to consider a possible financial change or even a fear of loyalist violent resistance are all factors at play.
The Ireland’s Future group has been to the forefront of expanding conversations in the North about how to shape the future. I took part in a panel discussion it organised on Thursday evening — all panellists were from a Protestant or unionist background and there was general recognition that relationships are evolving and changing across the island. Among these panellists, at least, fears of being subsumed into a 32-county Catholic Ireland are gone.
The online event received widespread reaction on Twitter and one of the clear messages was that the Dublin Government needs to do a lot more planning to prepare for change, including constitutional change.
The unanimity from the panel on this point prompted one of them, the Rev Karen Sethuraman, to tweet directly to the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, saying: “Let’s get this on the table. Voices are rising.” The Rev Sethuraman is a mother originally from east Belfast who became the first woman to become a Baptist minister in Ireland.
Those “rising voices” of what could be termed “others” in Northern Ireland need to be listened to more in the Republic, which perhaps understandably focuses on its own issues.
Theresa Reidy, a political scientist at University College Cork, points out that exit polling at last year’s Dáil election showed concerns about housing, health and an unequal economic recovery were uppermost in voters’ minds. While Sinn Féin performed strongly in the election, Ms Reidy says, “this was not evidence of strengthening nationalism”.
In fact, as regards limited polling in the Republic about a referendum or attitudes towards the North in general, she notes: “The very fact the question isn’t asked often tells a story of its own. The feeling is that the Good Friday Agreement reached a settled position and while Brexit has unsettled that, [the North] still isn’t a top priority. Mild nationalism categorises the majority opinion in the Republic, so Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would be very reluctant to engage with a referendum that doesn’t clearly spell out what people are voting on.”
This last point is key, because the momentum towards a Border poll is such that it will happen at some point, and lessons from Britain about failure to prepare properly for the Brexit and Scottish independence referendums are examples of the real problems in the aftermath of the result either way.
The Government in Dublin, and indeed society in general south of the Border, is misreading the mood if it does not realise that the momentum for change will increase and have an impact right across the island. The challenge is for the Republic of Ireland to be open to change to make it amenable to a new relationship with Northerners, of whatever heritage.
“Mild nationalism” and general indifference to the North mean that Micheál Martin may feel comfortable within his own base, and indeed with the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael alliance when kicking the idea of a Border poll into the long grass.
The “shared island” project, which is laudable in its objective of fostering better relationships across the island, is limited in its ambition if it is a political holding operation to keep the demands of an advancing Sinn Féin at bay.
It remains to be seen how sustainable such a softly-softly approach is for a Fianna Fáil leader, even within his own party. And with Sinn Féin’s rise likely to continue, they will continue to push and ask the question. This should not be a party political issue, however; it is about wider societal change and widening discussions in the North show what is coming down the track.
With demographic change in Northern Ireland and an increase in English and Scottish nationalism threatening the break-up of the United Kingdom, the tectonic plates are shifting, and it would be better if the Republic took a deeper interest in and engaged with a changing Northern Ireland. The rumblings for change are not going to quieten down.
‘Those rising voices of ‘others’ in Northern Ireland need to be listened to’