Opinion

Tom Collins: Don’t put your money on a unionist horse

Tom Collins

Tom Collins

Tom Collins is an Irish News columnist and former editor of the newspaper.

If the new king’s handling of his meetings with Alex Maskey and Michelle O’Neill are anything to go by, there is hope that he will not only carry on with his mother’s work, but accelerate it.
If the new king’s handling of his meetings with Alex Maskey and Michelle O’Neill are anything to go by, there is hope that he will not only carry on with his mother’s work, but accelerate it. If the new king’s handling of his meetings with Alex Maskey and Michelle O’Neill are anything to go by, there is hope that he will not only carry on with his mother’s work, but accelerate it.

Horses were one of the passions the late Queen Elizabeth shared with many readers of this paper. She studied form, and she liked a flutter.

It is hardly surprising that the head of a hereditary monarchy would take an interest in the bloodlines of the inhabitants of her stables. Breeding after all is one of the words used to denote class.

For as long as I have been alive, people have been joking about the obligation on nationalists to breed their way into a united Ireland. And fair enough, it’s one solution to this gerrymandered excuse for a state.

But, as anyone with half a brain cell knows, it’s not as simple as that. Ok, there is something deeply symbolic about the demographic shift.

Wiser voices know, however, that this does not necessarily translate into votes to restore Ireland’s political integrity.

Of much greater importance than the census figures yesterday was the presence of nationalist leaders, alongside an Uachtarain and an Taoiseach, at the state funeral of a monarch whose predecessors were so often on the wrong side of Irish history.

Anyone who watched the funeral – and it was something to behold – could have been in no doubt about the inextricable link between the monarchy and the British military machine.

The fancy costumes might have made the ceremonial look like something out of Gilbert and Sullivan, but the eight young men who carried the Queen’s coffin (impressively it must be said) had been flown back from Iraq to do their royal duty. A generation ago it might have been from south Armagh.

But no republican is going to begrudge an army firing a salute over its fallen leader. And this leader had used her soft power to signal an elemental change in the relations between Ireland and Britain.

By supporting reconciliation, and recognising the damage done to Ireland by her forebears, not least during the War of Independence, she helped the process of healing begin.

Although unacknowledged by the British media – the state broadcaster even neglected to give the first minister designate her proper title – Michelle O’Neill’s attendance at the funeral, and her generous comments about the Queen, was pure statecraft.

It, alongside Sinn Féin’s willingness to show political leadership on behalf of all citizens at King Charles’s accession visit, is another contribution to the healing process.

And it underlined the fact that the DUP, by refusing to do its duty, has only succeeded in marginalising unionism further. Who would have imagined the monarch and Alex Maskey cracking jokes at Jeffrey Donaldson’s expense?

I hope Sinn Féin’s actions will also have helped assure those in the unionist community who are willing to embrace change, that an executive led by republicans would not be triumphalist, nor would it be dismissive of the deep bonds which exist between many here and the Crown.

If the new king’s handling of his meetings with Maskey and O’Neill are anything to go by, there is hope that he will not only carry on with his mother’s work, but accelerate it.

Breidge Gadd’s letter in Tuesday’s Irish News, where she talked of her encounter with the then Prince of Wales, suggests a man who is engaged and who wants to support initiatives which better the lives of people society has left behind.

And this brings us back to yesterday’s census figures and the sterile argument about nationalists breeding their way into a united Ireland. (Gerry Adams called it an enjoyable pastime but hardly a political strategy.)

Those of us who see partition as an aberration, and who want Ireland to be whole again, recognise that it will be achieved by winning hearts and minds, not by mastering the abacus.

Unionism had a chance to show generosity and broaden support for its cause over the course of a century. But through its paranoid refusal to value the rights and culture of the nationalist community, it has undermined the union and let down the weakest in its own community.

Worse for unionism, having lost the battle for hearts and minds, the once powerful economic argument for remaining within the UK is lost now too. The poorest in the United Kingdom are now among the poorest in the developed world. And today’s mini budget will make their position worse.

Unionism’s complacency fooled it into thinking it was running a one-horse race in royal colours. I suspect even the late queen would think we’d all be better putting our money on the outsider in the orange and green shirt.