When you are a Spurs fan you learn to temper your enthusiasm for soccer. That said, I do watch their games on TV more in hope than expectation. After that my interest in soccer is limited to finals or international games mainly involving the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland or England.
Last week I was pleased that Northern Ireland performed well against their Czech counterparts and slightly underwhelmed by the performance of the Republic. The Northern Ireland win (and I am someone who has no problem saying Northern Ireland) brought forth a slew of selfies by unionist politicians declaring how great “our wee country is!” And therein is the rub. Northern Ireland is not a wee country, or even a tiny one. In fact it’s not a country at all.
Over the years when the old Stormont existed and Westminster didn’t give a fiddler's elbow about what went on here and the Republic was still trying to emerge as a nation, a false notion took root that the Republic and Northern Ireland were in fact politically equal. They were not then and are not now. Successive Westminster governments from the 1920s through to the late 1960s brushed their embarrassing unionist cousins under the mother of all carpets called Stormont. It wasn’t until the dirt under that carpet turned into a mound did Westminster take any notice at all.
The Republic of Ireland is a sovereign nation on a par with the United Kingdom - though the current negotiations over Brexit would suggest that this current Tory government seem to struggle with this fact. They continually expect the Irish government to roll over as if they were still part of the British Empire. Tories and unionists seem to yearn for their imperial connections to the past.
All of that said, Northern Ireland exists as part of the United Kingdom and the Stormont executive and assembly is part of the British devolution network. Nationalists in both Sinn Féin and, it has to be said, the SDLP, are grossly insulting to their unionist counterparts when they constantly and deliberately refer to Northern Ireland as the ‘north’. And there starts the playground antics, firstly with unionists pointedly referring to `our wee country' and nationalists responding provocatively to the place as the `north'. The whole thing is childish.
Unionists are selectively British and they seem incapable of ensuring that civil rights such as same sex marriage which is available in the rest of the UK is available in Northern Ireland.
As historical papers which are currently being released show, unionists have always qualified their support for the British government but Northern Ireland isn’t the Falklands or Gibraltar. This is divided and contested space and therefore no British government can ever again act unilaterally over Northern Ireland without consulting the Irish government. The tantrum statement by the British government ruling out any prospect of joint authority with the Republic of Ireland should the current talks fail, had all the hallmarks of pressure being applied by the DUP on an administration beholden to them for its survival in office.
Unionists can be outraged all they want by Dublin involvement in the future of Northern Ireland but it's going nowhere. Soon the economic realities will hit home. Britain and Ireland both need each other in the post Brexit scenario and it’s that relationship which will take priority over unionist concerns. A lot has been said about how dependent Ireland is on Britain for trade but Ireland is the UK’s fourth largest trading partner. The UK trades more with Ireland than to China, India, Russia and Brazil combined.
Everyone knows that Sinn Féin has for thirty years been engaged in a systematic policy of historical negation or denial and in their green-tinted world, the party line and reality have merged because it suits their ideological agenda. Yet the notion propagated by anti-Sinn Féin commentators that the Irish foreign affairs minister is pursuing a green agenda that somehow favours SF or northern nationalism is pure bunkum. Minister Coveney is simply doing his job. Any suggestion that Coveney is being foolish by emulating the forcefulness of his respected predecessor, the late Peter Barry, is also baloney. Barry was the right man at the right time.
Northern nationalists have been historically wary of disengaged Fine Gaelers but Garret FitzGerald, Peter Barry and now Simon Coveney have redressed that perspective. With regard to Irish involvement, our wee country, the north or Northern Ireland will just have to suck it up as they say.
