Regally is yawn-fest for most
WHEN England’s Queen came to
●
Dublin a few years ago, she read out five words in Irish.
She was sitting at the same table as the then President of Ireland Mary McAleese, who mouthed ‘wow’ in response. You know all this. You know because the clip has been replayed 10,000 times over the past few days...
It was a nice gesture, but it was
● hardly a groundbreaking one.
But there are those who are keen to point to such moments as helping us to ‘grow up as a nation’.
Did Ireland ‘grow up as a nation’
● when Mick McCarthy and his team wore black armbands for Princess Diana before a World Cup qualifier with Iceland? Maybe it was a rugby match at Croke Park that forced us out of the hedges and stopped us eating grass.
Suppose it gives Official Ireland
● something to talk about. The rest of us yawn in indifference.
Given their fall in the polls, they will likely replace Fine Gael.
It’s a fair bet that we will have a Fianna Fail/Sinn Fein coalition.
That’s because Fianna Fáil’s only ideology all through the party’s history is to be in power. History has shown that they’ll jump through any hoops needed as long as they can keep a hand on the lever.
Sincerity
There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of people like Pearse Doherty and Eoin Ó Broin when they talk about pressing issues like health, economic reform and housing.
But Sinn Fein’s guiding ideology is the push for a United Ireland. Mary Lou McDonald would find very quickly that there are plenty within her party who would turn on her if she didn’t make moves towards trying to establish that once she gets into power.
How realistic is it that that could happen any time soon, though?
What would those who vote unionist make of the chants at Shamrock Rovers’ ground glorying in the death of
Queen Elizabeth II?
What would they think of the footage of the celebrations on the streets of Derry of the English Queen’s passing?
What of the bonfires all over the north where tricolours were burned in July?
When Giovanni Trapattoni was in charge of the national team, Ireland played Northern Ireland in the Nations Cup at the Aviva.
President Mary McAleese was booed by visiting supporters after being introduced over the PA system and that set the tone for what followed.
Some Irish fans responded by booing during God Save the Queen.
In turn, some Northern Ireland supporters greeted Amhran na bhFiann by either sitting down or turning their backs to the pitch.
Has that kind of poison disappeared in the space of just over a decade? It may even have got more toxic.
Whenever a real debate about a United Ireland starts, it will be noisy and it will be ugly — that’s the only confident prediction that can be made.