Opinion

Fionnuala O Connor: All changed, if not utterly

Ian Paisley campaigned against the sale, to the Catholic Church, of an ex-cinema on Belfast’s Lisburn Road for a possible new church building
Ian Paisley campaigned against the sale, to the Catholic Church, of an ex-cinema on Belfast’s Lisburn Road for a possible new church building Ian Paisley campaigned against the sale, to the Catholic Church, of an ex-cinema on Belfast’s Lisburn Road for a possible new church building

Even if for preference you look to the big world, you cannot ignore the childishness of current British politics, Johnson the worst show-off, Sunak as narrow in outlook as his suits.

A privileged class runs government and dominates Westminster. They are now trying to obstruct the official inquiry into the response to and impact of Covid. The bereaved will wait a long time for results.

But Northern Ireland is indicted for insularity, one side as bad as the other, hopelessly sectarian? Not by all.

Michael Viney, who died last week at 90 after a multi-talented career, obituarised perceptively by The Irish News, came on his own initiative as a young journalist to look more closely at the neglected north.

The Irish Times gave him space and time. He launched John Hume’s reputation in the Republic and the paper gave Hume a platform to preach participation rather than abstention, activism instead of cynicism.

Long time ago; changed times, much movement, a narrative arc that only perverse eyes can depict as a circle.

If Sinn Féin truly is prepared to make the north work it will be on massively revised terms, alongside unionists who know they must adjust.

The significance and implications of a ‘cultural Catholic’ voting majority ‘a decade away’, laid out before academic audiences but also on television by calm and eloquent political scientist Brendan O’Leary, may be ranted at but not denied. It is almost possible to feel sorry for unionists, in comparison so badly served by academics with a background of ‘cultural Protestantism’.

Their community’s privileged still serve Protestant unionists badly. For at least one generation with enough money for comfortable English or Scottish homes, the motto has been ‘Cut and run’.

A decades-long rule for teenagers, rehearsed at home and in school, has been to head for Scottish or English universities. Not to the Queen’s University of Belfast, once Queen’s staff became more representative of Catholics; certainly not when Catholic students, outnumbered four to one in the 60s, began to dominate.

Oh the complaints about insensitivity, Irish being stuffed down throats, disrespect for Britishness, from people who insisted well past its bedtime that God Save the Queen must conclude each graduation ceremony.

Queen’s had been the crown of smug unionism. Lacklustre university and ruling class lost dominance together, neither ever sufficiently interested in broadening access to lift even Belfast’s working-class Protestant districts. Sandy Row remained a sad neighbour.

Before the softest-hearted of us encourage empathy with unionist politicians now lost for direction, we should ask for some acknowledgement of how the most influential have always treated the least powerful in their own community. It goes on, ambivalence about violence; IRA simply evil, UDA drug-dealing supposedly restricted to ‘dissidents’.

So change, if not utterly. A tiresome exhibitionist made his nth appearance last week to try scuppering Jeffrey Donaldson’s possibly in-negotiation return to Stormont. Not using his name, in case you wonder, is condign (there’s a word from the past) punishment for an exhibitionist.

Voters keep him in Westminster through thick (expenses-investigations, sucking up to Donald Trump) and thin (guldering on a platform beside Mark Francois, egging on Van Morrison). Embarrassment is beyond him, and who can wonder.

Away back in the late 50s his father thought it good to campaign against the sale, to the Catholic church, of an ex-cinema on Belfast’s Lisburn Road for a possible new church building.

Ian Paisley campaigned against the sale, to the Catholic Church, of an ex-cinema on Belfast’s Lisburn Road for a possible new church building
Ian Paisley campaigned against the sale, to the Catholic Church, of an ex-cinema on Belfast’s Lisburn Road for a possible new church building Ian Paisley campaigned against the sale, to the Catholic Church, of an ex-cinema on Belfast’s Lisburn Road for a possible new church building

The seller was the Presbyterian Church; long story. The Reverend Ian condemned them for enabling a project ‘to Papalise’ the Lisburn Road "and lower the tone of the whole area by becoming a Roman Catholic neighbourhood". Roman Catholics were "strengthening their grip on Belfast". Repulsive but right, if a mite premature.

When we moved in nearly 20 years later the derelict building at the corner had long lost its films billboard. Instead, in big black letters, it announced ‘No Taigs Here’.

We didn’t paint it out, but we stayed. There went the neighbourhood.