mancity2012_eamo
Well-Known Member
I understand where you’re coming from, but both aspirations have to be accommodated and taken into account democratically, under the GFA which had three strands that were all agreed on, which was almost miraculous considering the divisions at the time.
Strand 1 was power sharing between both sides within NI.
Strand 2 was relations between NI and the Republic.
Strand 3 concerned relations between the Irish and British governments.
This three strand plan was the brainchild of the the late John Hume, a man I have the deepest respect for.
If it is the will of the Northern Irish people to remain as they are, then I have no problem whatsoever with it. But I consider what the DUP are doing now as duplicitous, hypocritical and undemocratic.
The NIP is just the latest excuse for them not to sit in an assembly with a Sinn Feiner as first minister.
That is not the spirit of the GFA that the youth of 1998 though was dawning a bright new future for the North.
Jeffrey Donaldson himself was part of David Trimble’s negotiating team at the time. The team that got this done. That was before he jumped ship in the new millennium.
I’m watching a program in two parts, on RTE called The Agreement. It really is a remarkable achievement what was sorted out up north and on this island as a whole.
Part two is tonight but already a few things have struck me.
1. I don’t believe this would have been possible under a Tory government.
2. The DUP tried to scupper the whole thing (that part comes tonight I believe)
3. I knew what I was voting for in our referendum regarding articles 2 +3 of the Irish constitution and the meaning going forward.
Reginald Empey commented on this as being significant although his view is that those articles should never have existed in the first place.
Well that’s one view of history, but there is another side. I’d be of the view that there should never have been partition of the island in the first place, by a Tory government, for the very same economical reasons as you quote.
If we want to live in the history of Ireland rather than the future, then how far do you want to go back.
The whole of Ireland was part of the UK and voted Democratically more than once for devolution to a Dublin parliament.
At the risk of great bloodshed this never happened.
The Tory solution was to keep the commercially viable as well as predominantly loyalist majority of the North ensuring a loyalist majority.
The South had never had the same investment from London that the North had and consequently we were a third world country for a half a century after independence.
There are many historical reasons why the rest of Ireland was economically ignored under the empire but there is no need to go into that now. Let’s stick with the future or the prospects of one that suits both histories and both aspirations.
It took us joining the EEC for things to start to change.
There were many things wrong in Irish society during that time. But the country has changed and we have changed.
I believe Northern Ireland has changed too despite polar opposite’s still holding the two main party positions.
So as much as I see the logic in what you have written and also respect your viewpoint, I don’t subscribe to absolutes such as the assumption you have made.
Who knows what the future is in a globally changing economic world.
In the meantime, the DUP won’t take their seat in the Assembly and the Shinners won’t take their seats in Westminster.