Thoughts on partition

I have a complicated history where my opinions on the constitutional status of the island of Ireland are concerned. I mean, for what it’s worth... I live a long way away in another country, and so far I’ve only spent a week of my life there. So I don’t flatter myself that my opinions count for much. Nevertheless, it’s in the nature of blogging to lay one’s opinions out there, if only to exorcise them, so... here goes.

When I was quite a bit younger, from my early teens to my early 20s, my sympathies were with the unionists in Northern Ireland. For example, I vaguely remember the hunger strikes of the early 80s. I can remember being opposed to the men themselves but admiring their sacrifice. I also remember being at an intersection on King Street in Toronto's west end in the mid-90s, seeing a car with a "26+6=1" bumper sticker and snorting, "Paddy math" at it. I didn’t know much about what had gone on in Ireland at that point, and my opinions were informed more by analogy than by knowledge...

In Canada, “Loyalist” has a particular meaning: it refers to the United Empire Loyalists, those people in the Thirteen Colonies who, during and after the American Revolution, remained loyal to Britain and the Empire. Hundreds of thousands left the US after the war. The wealthy few went to Britain; some left for the British West Indies; but most settled in Canada and became, by and large, the foundation for English Canada, including all those of who followed of whatever race and religion. This is not a divisive term in Canada; and generally speaking, it’s not one that would be typically applied to anyone living today.

But the resonance was there, and so when I heard people in Northern Ireland referred to as “loyalists”, it appealed to the sense of my own country I’d learned in history class. And I suppose there is an element of that. It’s an appeal to value many of the same traditions.

At that time, though, I was uninformed as to the real nature of the Northern Irish statelet. I had conceived that some vote was taken and that the people in the north had freely chosen a different course. I imagined the place to be very much like Canada... where people might be different, but were essentially of the same condition and opportunities, just trying to get along together. I had the superficial opinion that the Troubles were nothing more than some mad hippies trying to force something on everyone else, that no one else wanted...

I didn’t know, then, that even before partition, the unionists of the north had illegally armed themselves, signed a covenant in 1912, and threatened civil war against their own country to, in perhaps the greatest irony of history, force it to allow them to remain in it. I didn’t know, then, that the men who set the statelet up were on public record declaring it to be for people like themselves alone, or that Protestants should not employ Catholics. I didn’t know then about the breathtaking gerrymandering of elected bodies that insured Protestant control even of places with Catholic majorities, that no Catholic ever held a ministerial position in Stormont. I hadn’t heard of the anti-Catholic pogroms of the 1920s and 1930s, and even later, or of the compliciency of the RUC and British Army in enforcing these policies. I was ignorant of the NICRA civil rights struggle of the mid-60s, the violent reception it received, and how that final loss of hope led to the creation of the Provisional IRA. I was unaware of the institution of the Marching Season, and the annual, triumphalist parades through the neighbourhoods of the nationalist community; the needless provocation year after year after year. I didn’t know any of those things then. Once I did, my opinions began to change. And ultimately, they reversed. Eventually, I was the guy with the "26+6=1" bumper sticker.

I’m not sure exactly when I realized I no longer supported the unionists in Northern Ireland, but a some point around the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, I was firmly of the opinion that a united Ireland must come. I suppose it came from a sort of sense of betrayal. I had sympathized with the unionists, if only because my understanding of the situation was shallow, but nevertheless I had. But I am, technically, Catholic. And to discover that, finally, that’s all that matters, and that even being peaceful and toeing the line would have still meant there were places someone like me couldn’t go, jobs I couldn’t have, positions I couldn’t aspire to, angered me. When I looked at the Irish Republic, though, I saw a place that, though largely Catholic, had had Protestant presidents, and senators from Northern Ireland. It seemed to me, for a long time, the only fair thing was to disestablish Northern Ireland and for the Republic to assume it all. That seemed to me to be the only hope for everyone to get a fair shake.

There’s a song by The Monkees called Shades of Grey. It’s a lament for the loss of the simplicity and certitude of youth, in which the singers reminisce about how easy it once was to know right from wrong, truth from lies, and how that surety is lost as one matures. While I recognize that some people become only more firmly entrenched in their convictions as they grow older, I’ve certainly found the sentiments of Shades of Grey to be true in my life...

Again, you know, you can say it’s none of my business because I don’t live there. But in looking at Northern Ireland now, I see a short of manageable equilibrium has been established. Now the barriers to equality are down, and where they’re not, there are ways to bring them down. Now Catholics have a real voice in their own government. Now the opinions of Leinster House have some weight, not just Westminster. I’ve been to Ulster and I’ve seen that there is no indication of the border... I saw trucks from businesses on either side doing work on the other... people moving back and forth as they pleased, buying and selling and living. In a romantic sense, I would still like to see a united Ireland. I’d love to be there in the crowd when it happens. But I no longer see it as inevitable or absolutely necessary. Maybe this is enough. If you can go where you want, be who you want, feel how you want, then does it really matter all that much where your representatives sit or where your tax money goes to or comes from? Maybe not so much. Maybe “good enough” really is good enough.

Shades of grey.