Why does a united Northern Ireland still seem a pipe dream?

Why does a united Northern Ireland still seem a pipe dream?
The inability to agree on flags and parades – fear-mongering emblems of a militarist past – highlights the impossibility of the US negotiator's task


       Simon Jenkins
       theguardian.com, Monday 23 December 2013 09.32 GMT

Last night the American negotiator Richard Haass seemed close to throwing up his hands in despair over yet another bid to bring peace to the parties in Northern Ireland. He has been struggling since July to clear up lingering aspects of the ever-hesitant peace process. These include flags, parades and how to treat the legacies and suspicions of past conflicts. The parties meet again this morning to seek a deal but hopes are not high.

For most Britons the words Northern Ireland induce a sinking heart. They would like to see it sail off into the sunset with its grim ancestral feuds. It beggars belief that the United Kingdom, which delights in telling the world how to behave, still contains a province as divided as Northern Ireland. Its religious tribes remain separated socially, geographically and culturally. It has separate schools and even walls to keep each other apart, a humiliation shared in Europe only with Cypriots.

There are signs of a willingness to lay some of the past to rest, as in offering immunity from prosecution. This would be delicate as it involves a suspension of normal justice. More bizarre is the inability to agree on flags and parades, emblems of a militarist past blatantly intended to induce fear in an enemy. Why should anyone need such antics in 21st century Europe? Any sensible person would simply ban them, totally and without partiality. Yet parades and flags are so embedded in the psychology of this divided society that no one can conceive of living without them.

It is easy to blame the Irish people for their inability to set the past behind them and forge a united province. Yet similar divisions in Liverpool and Glasgow have been overcome with determined leadership, including from the churches. The reality in Northern Ireland is that this leadership was lacking. As a result, for almost half a century the province was ruled from London – with British and even American negotiators summoned to help. This has been one of the starkest failures in the long history of "English intervention". It would surely be better if the Irish were left to sort it all out themselves.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/23/northern-ireland-united-us-negotiator-flags-parades

An inability to deal with flags and parades, just about sums it up.    Of course it would be better if they sorted it out for themselves, but they wouldn't, and the bombs and the shooting would progress over here.   Having served in N.Ireland twice, my OH is firmly convinced it will never be over, too many killings, too many grudges, and of course, religion.

Is it just me, or would returning N. Ireland to the Republic be a great first step? I'm not there and can't begin to sort through all the issues, but it seems like a place that is Ireland where Irish are forced to be a minority.

Just to compare it to Texas, Texas went from being a colonized by the Spanish to a Mexican province to an independent nation to part of the U.S. (and for a short while a rebel state, but then back to the U.S.). The thing is, people were never forced to deny their culture in Texas -- we didn't stamp out Spanish, Catholicism or any other aspect of Latin culture. N. Ireland is different in that the British government tried to stamp out Irishness there. I think that might have been the biggest mistake and the source of much of the bitterness, and if it were simply returned to the Republic, maybe some of that would die down.

Or I could be totally off-track. It does, of course, appear to resemble one of those conflicts like Israel-Palestine, where there are powerful entities with no interest in ending the conflict.

But it seems to me that N. Ireland has always been seen as occupied territory, at least by some. Some of the forgiveness could be found in justifying some of the crimes committed as part of the fight to end occupation, right?

That's about right and it's being passed on to the children so little hope really.

Northern Ireland has a majority that are protestant and the Rebublic are Catholic. That's about it really. The protestant majority will never accept rule from Dublin in fact most of the hardliners would be prrepared to die to prevent it.
No hope

I completely agree that it should never have been partitioned, it wasn't ours to partition, but as Irn says, the protestants would rather die than be governed from Dublin so it's pretty insolvable.

What are they afraid of?

Lord knows, nobody does! I think it stems from the fact that the Roman Catholic Church and the Irish Government were very closely entwined. Not so much these days, but it's still there. Hence their non-abortion laws.

Britain didn't want partition, the Northern Irish Protestants vowed to fight to the death to keep the province part of the UK, the partitioning was an effort to avert war, as the Northern Irish weren't kidding obviously it would be better to have Ireland united but the Northern Irish don't look at things in the same way as the Southern Irish obviously because they are decended from incomers who were deliberately encouraged to settle there because they were Protestants although now after hundreds of years they are undoubtably Irish.
Many Southern Irish wanted self government but to stay in the British Empire which then became the Commonwealth, it wasn't really how you usually hear our cousins across the pond tell it and to be honest what many Brits believe. That's not to say of course that the Irish weren't badly treated by the government and the landed gentry (some of wom actually were Irish not English) but to be honest who of the working class wasn't badly treated by the gentry, Scots run off their land and replaced by sheep, Cornish miners working in slavelike conditions, Yorkshire children working for poor board and keep until they were 21 virtually owned by the mill owners, Welsh miners replaced by Irish immigrants who worked for half what the Welsh got who were already on starvation wages, the mass of people in those times, the workers had no power at all.

All true unfortunately and the reason why it will never stop.

Sassy wrote:Lord knows, nobody does!   I think it stems from the fact that the Roman Catholic Church and the Irish Government were very closely entwined.   Not so much these days, but it's still there.   Hence their non-abortion laws.

Hardly.
Republicans, majority of which being Catholic, were in the minority up there, not to even mention the gerrymandering by the Unionists, the majority of which being Protestant, so the unionists/protestants and their love for the UK won out in the votes that took place to decide upon the issue before.
Nothing to do with the Unionists/Protestants being terrified of being part of the Republic, it's more to do with the Unionists/Protestants wanting to remain part of the UK.

Irn Bru wrote:Northern Ireland has a majority that are protestant and the Rebublic are Catholic. That's about it really. The protestant majority will never accept rule from Dublin in fact most of the hardliners would be prrepared to die to prevent it.
No hope

Actually Irn it is now near very much even with Catholics and Protestants, in fact the later is decreasing whist the first is increasing in numbers.

Ireland belongs to the Irish, it always has done, Britain replaced the deck of cards with one of its own and this deck of cards changed the demographics of the area for years to come.
No matter what the Protestants say today will be in time a thing of the past, one day the people will all want to be part of a united Ireland as it should be. The reality is only that it will take time for that to happen, but it will happen one day! All that is happening is delaying that day as neither is ready, but that day will come.

Very good point by Knave by the way!

But I thought you didn't believe in taking sides?