Goodbye 2017 and bad cess to you. Let us narrow focus to hold horror at bay, concentrate on this place. The best to be said is that fuzzy thinking has sharpened.
Political business looks like ending for the year with the DUP imagining their deal with Theresa May makes them safely dominant, no matter what the Brexit dangers. That helped produce a wounded cry from northern nationalists. On parallel lines Tánaiste Simon Coveney got the traditional ‘none of your business’ from Gregory Campbell for saying the ‘two governments’ would have to make up for no Stormont executive.
Slight enough figure as he has been throughout his career in the eyes of close observers, current Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has made crisp statements on the north even though his preference for the title ‘Northern Ireland’ can be nails-on-the-blackboard for nationalists of various ages. But the day after that letter from a couple of hundred northern nationalists appeared in this paper, he slugged it out in the Dáil with Micheál Martin, to suggest he’d be tougher in their defence than governments of the 50s and 60s. And that was defending himself days earlier to the Belfast Telegraph. “No Irish government will ever again leave Northern nationalists and Northern Ireland behind”. Ringing stuff.
He has also emphasised the northern vote to stay in the EU which the DUP with their Westminster deal, and Theresa May, so contemptuously push to the side. Which irks the DUP precisely because it constitutes a useful marker – a validation, people call it these days – about the preference of the self-described Irish in the north.
So no need for the same Irish to worry? Of course there is. Northern niggles and jabs usually take a while to reach the official heart of the Republic, 26-county ‘Ireland’. But unionist self-absorption and sourness towards Dublin has made an impact. There may be little or no automatic southern identification with northerners but there is a strong identification with their own state. Leo is no natural ally of northern nationalism but he is taoiseach, and he may be growing into the role.
Unionist objections to himself and Coveney cranked up as the two stepped forward in Brexit phase one. Battling for the nation’s economic interests, they have a protective cloak. Nobody could be safer in voicing defence of the Irish in the north than Fine Gael’s current top two.
They are safe because everybody knows that like most of the Dáil they hate Sinn Féin. The DUP, like their Conservative Brexit allies, don’t know or cannot compute that.
The official south has trouble seeing beyond Sinn Féin in the north to the rest of nationalism. Turned off by its own preoccupations and the long decline of the SDLP, only sheer DUP and Conservative arrogance could jab through, as the prolonged violence of the past did.
Is this significant, lasting re-engagement? If so, it won’t be because of last week’s letter. That would have stood better on its own – even with the limitations of being disproportionately male – if Sinn Féin hadn’t glommed on to it so fast. The craving for control or at least loud association always kicks in, transparent, brass-necked. There’s a bunch of names, the thinking seems to be, not avowedly our production, but who among them will object to our seal of approval?
A Declan Kearney blog is not the most tempting recommendation to a wider readership. But Fine Gael’s lads couldn’t be allowed to stand out, looking good.
And of course it took Brexit to galvanise Dublin’s interest in the north/Northern Ireland - whatever Coveney now calls it in his head. The tánaiste has made a mark at Stormont in the unfocused talks, impressing at least some of the media very straightforwardly. He comes out to answer questions alongside the insubstantial James Brokenshire, and visibly thinks about his answers. Brokenshire recites his, then scoots off while Coveney stands around, hands in pockets, willing to chat.
By such modest gestures is a reputation bolstered. The Corkman must also be starting to build his own sense of the northern parties, and to the degree that any media reflects its society, of the north.
Taking DUP flak about ‘interference’ must also be educational. Give or take a few respectful phrases about rebuilding relationships Varadkar and Coveney have stood by their statements. The DUP barrels on with its special British government relationship, beyond argument and beyond embarrassment, while demanding that nationalists stand alone.
Feeding their delusions would be no way to produce a more stable Stormont.
