Opinion

Deaglán de Bréadún: Some may find life dull without the royal soap opera

Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh admire a hurley passed to them by GAA President Christy Cooney during a tour of Croke Park, Dublin, in May 2011. Photo: Maxwells/PA Wire.
Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh admire a hurley passed to them by GAA President Christy Cooney during a tour of Croke Park, Dublin, in May 2011. Photo: Maxwells/PA Wire. Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh admire a hurley passed to them by GAA President Christy Cooney during a tour of Croke Park, Dublin, in May 2011. Photo: Maxwells/PA Wire.

I AM indebted to the late Prince Philip for a rather unusual reason. The outpouring of public grief that followed his death brought to mind something I had read, many years ago, which attempted to explain the reverence and indeed adulation that so many people feel for the British royal family. The author was none other than Friedrich Engels (1820-95), stalwart supporter and revolutionary comrade of Karl Marx.

In my student days I devoured tracts of that nature, on how to change the world and end poverty and deprivation. Indeed my dear mother observed to a friend: “He has socialist books and pamphlets on his bed, under his bed and over his bed.” She would no doubt have preferred if I was concentrating on the syllabus for my next examination.

They were all hard-copy publications of course: there was no internet and the only Google on the horizon was a cartoon character whose first name was Barney. I have done a Google search for the aforementioned Engels piece but it hasn’t turned up yet. However, my recollection is that the British ruling class – he may well have used the term ‘bourgeoisie’ – suffered from an inferiority complex (although that precise term wasn’t yet coined) and needed the monarchy to represent it on the world stage. Marx himself wrote that, in France, life was much harder for the bourgeoisie in the absence of the monarchy “since they must now confront the subjugated classes . . . without the concealment afforded by the crown”.

I did come across some other writings by Engels, relating to what used to be called ‘The Irish Question’. This was the man who declared: “Give me two hundred thousand Irishmen and I could overthrow the entire British monarchy.”

I would be very sympathetic to the view that the monarchy should be dispensed with in favour of a no-frills democratic system. However, there is a part of me that wonders if many people would find life somewhat dull without their regular diet of reports on the House of Windsor. ‘Coronation Street’ wouldn’t be enough, although they could also watch episodes of ‘The Crown’.

I never had a one-to-one encounter with Prince Philip but I reported on the historic occasion where the Queen and himself shook hands with Martin McGuinness at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast on June 27, 2012. I also covered their visit to Croke Park, as part of their Irish tour in May the previous year, during which then-President of the Gaelic Athletic Association, Christy Cooney, referred to the British massacre of 14 people at the grounds in 1920 as well as the more recent death in April 2011 of GAA member and PSNI Constable Ronan Kerr outside Omagh, in a booby-trap bomb claimed by republican dissidents.

One of the more significant royal occasions I witnessed was the visit of Prince Charles on February 15, 2002 to the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in County Wicklow. It was at the end of a two-day trip to Ireland and there was little expectation of anything dramatic.

But he took us by surprise when, standing outside what was once a British Army barracks, he said: “I am only too deeply aware of the long history of suffering which Ireland has endured, not just in recent decades but over the course of its history.” He continued that, “For over 30 years the Northern Ireland conflict has destroyed individual lives.”

In language reminiscent of the late Seamus Heaney, he went on to say: "Without glossing over the pain and suffering of the past, we can, I believe, integrate our history and memory in order to reap their subtle harvest of possibility."

Interestingly, the prince had dined with Seamus and Marie Heaney the night before, in the British Ambassador’s residence 14 miles away at Glencairn.

In the last few days we have heard Mary Lou McDonald expressing her sorrow on Times Radio at the “heartbreaking” deaths of Lord Mountbatten, along with two teenage boys and a woman in her 80s, in an IRA bomb attack in 1979. The Sinn Féin leader’s remarks could be a significant step towards that haven of concord and harmony on what Heaney called “the far side of revenge”.

Email: Ddebre1@aol.com; Twitter: @DdeBreadun