Life

A capital idea

My Ireland, My England: Two Irelands - One Capital by veteran Armagh city-born journalist Paddy McGarvey combines a compelling autobiography with the author's manifesto for progressive political change. David Roy spoke to McGarvey about the book and his proposals for a new and improved Ireland

THE clue is in the title. My Ireland, My England: Two Irelands - One Capital has been written by a man who, having seen plenty of both his native Ireland and adopted England, has hatched a plan to sort out his troubled homeland once and for all.

Paddy McGarvey (86) believes Leinster House and Stormont have had their day. In fact, it's high time both Dail and Assembly were relocated from Dublin and Belfast to more picturesque settings - Ballyjamesduff in Co Cavan, to be precise.

Percy French, who once sang Come Back Paddy Reilly To Ballyjamesduff, would surely approve.

The former newspaper man and one-time Labour candidate for mid-Ulster (whose nephew is Academy and Bafta Award-nominated cinematographer Seamus McGarvey) hit upon the idea of a new neutral Irish capital with two parliaments in the 1990s.

McGarvey was then the director of the Irish Parliament Trust, a political think-tank established on a charitable basis in 1985 to promote debate and research on potential new constitutional arrangements between Britain and Ireland.

Looking at countries once ruled by imperial powers, McGarvey and co realised that virtually all had rejected the former imperial capital in favour of another neutral city.

In other words, with Belfast and Dublin both tainted by the British Empire, it's time to move on to pastures new - just as the Canadians (Ottawa), Australians (Canberra) and Americans (Washington DC) have done before us. Interestingly, the Cambridge-based writer suggests that it can be done without the need to re-jig the existing border, a prospect which should curry favour with realists, loyalists and 'economic unionists' in the north, plus the vast majority in the south. Most of the island, in other words. "It would be the best thing for Ireland to simply recognise partition as the way things are and then to make the best of it," McGarvey tells me.

Those who scoff at the idea of uprooting Ireland's parliaments from their traditional homes would do well to consult the Better Government of Ireland Act 1920, which states that northern and southern governments can sit anywhere they choose.

The proviso also survived in de Valera's 1937 Irish constitution.

But why Ballyjamesduff? "It's always been in my head because I have the book written by Percy French's daughter listing all his songs," McGarvey admits. "I've often gone to it for a quote on anything. Besides, the triple name appealed to me."

Apart from its obvious prosaic charms, this handsome market settlement (winner of the Irish Tidy Towns Competition 1966 and 1967) in Co Cavan also has the advantage of being located in the current Republic yet also within a part of Ulster originally coveted by northern unionists before partition.

As detailed in this witty and highly readable book, over the years McGarvey has put his idea to a number of political heavy-hitters without much success.

Big ears bent include those of former secretary of state for Northern Ireland Jim Prior, Marys Robinson and McAleese and, most recently (by letter), a certain William Jefferson Clinton.

The former US president wrote back to say: "I appreciate your ideas. As I work to improve our world, I'm grateful for your support."

A "soft put down" is how McGarvey describes this response.

Whether or not you agree with his proposals for Ballyjamesduff, My Ireland My England still makes for a page-turning read thanks to its exciting accounts of McGarvey's reliably colourful journalistic (mis)adventures during the post-war years.

Rising from Cork title The Southern Star in far-flung Macroom to the top dailies and Sundays in London's Fleet Street, the Armagh man was sacked six times over the years (mostly for spurious or 'political' reasons) in and around encountering mass murderers, Hollywood starlets, British prime ministers and East End gangsters.

As for his dream of Ballyjamesduff as a shared Irish capital, McGarvey remains typically optimistic. "It'll not happen in my time," admits this 'toil-worn and tough' thinker. "But it might happen in yours."

* My England: Two Irelands One Capital, published by Xlibris, is available from Amazon.co.uk now in both paperback and ebook formats.

*FORWARD-THINKING:Journalist Paddy McGarvey