Opinion

Fionnuala O Connor: In unsettled times, to be Irish is communal glue

Leo Varadkar recently dismissed claims that relations with Theresa May had deteriorated. Picture by John Stillwell/PA Wire
Leo Varadkar recently dismissed claims that relations with Theresa May had deteriorated. Picture by John Stillwell/PA Wire Leo Varadkar recently dismissed claims that relations with Theresa May had deteriorated. Picture by John Stillwell/PA Wire

‘How are we doin?’ In the weekend wind and rain this was no invite to a chew-over but thoughtful behind the jokeyness and characteristic, from someone probably typical of a middle nationalism. Irish and Catholic by birth, torn various ways since, there is a band of the population re-oriented by upheavals in the wider political world, and what those may mean.

None of the labels that the Troubles and their semi-settlement stuck on people are quite right any longer. ‘How are we doin’ meant checking in with another who might be at the same stage of development, stock-taking at a big moment. ‘Doin’ rightly, for now’ is the answer. With a health warning.

If there is no Brexit deal, it will be disastrous for the Republic as well as for the UK, a hard reverse for the Irish government with major implications here. Unsettled times, though, generally find nationalists of most stripes more optimistic than unionists. That’s the problem with starting off in control, or imagining you are; change is bound to terrify.

Negotiations that could never deliver what Brexiteers wanted, and particularly EU solidarity with Irish needs, has highlighted a British arrogance long out of synch with the UK’s true global status. The dark backcloth is the aftermath of the ’08 economic crash and growing fear of another, Conservative ‘austerity’ starving the NHS and the punitive, mis-named universal credit. Comparatively minor local features are the suspended Stormont and that RHI report, and what both will mean for the DUP and Sinn Féin.

The year draws to a close and Christmas, family-row season, is closing in. One part of the population will be keener than the other on political chat over the turkey. A straw poll says many unionist families will not want to discuss RHI, or Arlene Foster as accidental promoter of a united Ireland. Pride in the DUP’s Westminster importance is clearly matched by embarrassment among non-DUP supporters: ‘They think we’re all like that!’ Paisley junior might be light relief.

The rift between business and unionist politics may indeed be as deep as some think. Or in due course will it be ignored, much as middle Ulster used to swallow their disgust at Paisley senior? (That was in European elections only, to ensure that Hume stayed stuck in second place, but European elections may be over.) Drift following rift seems the most likely outcome. This time large farmers, UFU-stalwarts, may take a one-way path away from voting.

What unionist politicians do to their cause is a difficult subject inside their own community.

Awareness of what their politicians have done to nationalist opinion is harder to screen out. Public pronouncements have been rattled off. Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney have been ‘poking unionism in the eye’ and spouting ‘triumphalism’, the Republic’s leaders are mainly motivated by a desire to annoy, even hurt unionists, it is said, and nationalists are delighted by how the story has panned out. The accusation against Varadkar and Coveney is nonsense. But nationalists here certainly see possible gain ahead, as well as risk and danger.

Separate and distinct Christmas conversations will churn away out of each other’s hearing. The big topic is shared; Brexit, how to deal with it. Even shaken and shrunken, the SDLP is still more sure-footed on Europe than ambivalent, conflicted Sinn Féin. Where families contain two or three shades of nationalism, as most do, the republicans will be quieter on Jeremy Corbyn lining out on the backstop with the DUP. ‘Oh Jeremy!’ doesn’t do it.

But at unsettled times to be Irish is still communal glue. To be British is to be more than ever torn. The irony is that ‘Ireland’, almost never meaning the whole island, is all over the airwaves. Middle nationalists have been taking pleasure in the reasonable performances of a Taoiseach who barely knows they exist, and whose ‘Ireland’ long ago whited out its top right-hand corner.

How are all of us doing? Would that there was an ‘all of us’, though only a hypocrite would pretend not to understand the ‘we’. What Foster teed up with her scaly creatures has been confirmed with every Tory insult. We Irish north of the border are more Irish all the time. Leo’s ‘Ireland’ can whistle. ‘Northern Irishness’ is an extinct parrot.

(An end of year P.S. A faithful reader says a recent reference to big earners like Stephen Nolan and Marian Finucane suggested our earnings are similar. She knows this is not so. But how did I do that? Holiday time. )