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As
an Irish-American Republican - watching with interest
how Mr. Trimble’s supposed “last chance”
for the current peace effort fares tomorrow, the 226th
anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence
- I wonder whether, in the next decades, Irish Republicanism
will make a positive contribution to “the Irish
question,” especially should the Good Friday
Agreement scheme fail.
Several
things I wonder about specifically in this regard.
Democratic values are a sine qua non to republicanism,
but what do those values actually mean to Irish Republicanism
in the North? Intellectual honesty and vigor are valuable
elements of republicanism in any region, but how pervasive
are they within Irish Republicanism? Christian principles
- admittedly an optional element in the workings of
republics - might be especially helpful in Irish political
thinking, but do they exist broadly, or adequately,
in Irish Republicanism?
Concerning
those questions, Mr. Ciarán Irvine’s recent
article “Remembering
the Future” may offer something of a window
on contemporary Irish Republican thought, in three
ways particularly.
First,
“Remembering the Future” shows that untestable
speculation and conjecture can readily form the basis
of Republican argument and strategy:
Radical
changes in the political sphere have a way of sneaking
up on us. Who in 1929 could have envisaged that
within a mere decade the globe would be engulfed
in the fire, atrocity and horror of the Second World
War? And if anyone had been foolhardy to suggest,
in 1980, that within 10 years the Berlin Wall would
come down, Eastern Europe would throw off the Stalinist
yoke, and the Soviet Union would be on the verge
of peacefully dissolving itself, they would have
been laughed out of court.
Likewise who, during the triumphal 1903 Irish tour
of Edward VII, would have predicted that a mere
18 years later a Treaty would be signed granting
26 counties freedom from the British Crown?
I have a suspicion that those who suggest that any
change in the constitutional status of Ireland is
decades off, if ever; and that any such change will
be driven in the end by the (in my view morally
and intellectually bankrupt, not to mention sectarian)
“demographic argument” may well find themselves
standing stunned as the tide of history sweeps by
unheralded and unlooked for.
In
essence: “This whole thing about ‘the tide
of history’ is pretty tough to understand, particularly
as events we haven’t predicted sometimes happen!
Maybe our cherished goal of reunion will be reached
because something ‘unheralded and unlooked for’
will sneak up on us!” Maybe, though, it won’t.
Second,
“Remembering the Future” demonstrates again
that trivializing the lives of the living can appropriately
be central to arguments on the Irish Republican cause:
It has always been my view that, when viewed
against the vast sweep of Irish history - 8,000 years
of it - the centuries of the Occupation are but a
blip, a passing phase, a temporary (if unpleasant)
phenomenon. And it is my firm conviction that this
is precisely how future generations of Irish men and
women will view the whole sorry episode. Even if the
nay-sayers and pessimists are correct[ in their “morally
and intellectually bankrupt” demographic analyses],
the Occupation is unlikely to reach the grand tally
of 900 years - in 2070 or thereabouts. And barring
some catastrophic natural disaster, I think even the
most pessimistic of us would concede that Ireland,
and the Irish, have a good deal more than 68 years
remaining to them!
“[The over eight] centuries of the Occupation”
do seem like “a blip” when described in the
context of all of time since 6000 B.C., a mere three
thousand years before Egyptians started building pyramids.
(The solidarity that Irish Republicans apparently have
with their native forebears five hundred generations
back is quite remarkable.) How comforting that 8000-year
comparison will be to some in Northern Ireland today
is, however, perhaps another matter. Certainly Mr. Irvine
chose well in declining to argue instead: “The
only ‘blip’ of history in which there has
been an ‘Occupation’ of Ireland is made up
of those paltry few years since the end of Europe’s
Dark Ages.” In the spirit of “[r]emembering
the [f]uture,” I would accept that, by about 9000
A.D., this British “Occupation” will indeed
look like a “blip” of history; furthermore,
I surely will sleep a lot better at night having reached
that weighty conclusion regarding this “whole sorry
episode,” this “temporary (if unpleasant)
phenomenon.”
However,
the most important point in this part of Mr. Irvine’s
argument is that the upcoming “68 years”
or so are all but an irrelevance in this grand scheme
of things. Lives seriously or grievously scarred,
or too early lost entirely, in what may be a run-up
to the achievement of the “one, true, holy, [c]atholic,
and apostolic” 32-county Republic just don’t
matter much in the “vast sweep of Irish history.”
Those scars suffered and lives lost mean very little
because most of the rest of us will be able to live
out our own years in the sure and certain belief that
- at some point, either before our deaths or after
- there will be a free all-Ireland state, and our
“side” will have won! The long and laudable
social quest for liberty, equality, and fraternity
is, thus, something Irish Republicans can blithely
consign to the science of demographics and the sands
of time, which together will doubtless prevail, sooner
or later, in that appointed task. Between now and
then, as Doris Day might say, “Que sera, sera.”
Third,
“Remembering the Future” shows that - especially
with recommendations based on Irish tribal models
from a millennium or two ago - seeking to advise people
who will live six-or-so decades hence on the form
of their government is a fully legitimate undertaking:
[S]o,
what initially appears to be a bizarre political
structure - the entire island divided into anywhere
between 80 and 150 tuatha with a weak and
largely symbolic position of Ard Rí - is
in reality no more [sic] than a highly sensible
solution to the problem of a hugely diverse population,
especially where differing populations tend to be
geographically concentrated. ….
…. We need a system of Government, post-Occupation,
that can easily cater for the differing identities
of the rich tapestry of the Irish peoples.
Looking,
in all honesty, at the strength and quality of these
several “Remembering the Future” thoughts,
my general concerns about Irish Republicanism, today
and tomorrow, have not been completely allayed.
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