“May this historical gathering be a prelude of a day in which Irish people, North and South, under one parliament, or two, as those parliaments decide, shall work together for the common love of Ireland”.
These were the words spoken by King George V on the opening of the Northern Ireland parliament on June 7,1921.
It would seem the King neither ruled out re-unification or had any problem calling his subjects in the newly established Northern Ireland, Irish. He also made it clear whether with one parliament or two that they should “ work together for the common love of Ireland”.
Partition was, and in some ways still is how great powers see fit to solve complex problems. It didn’t matter if it was in the Levant, Palestine, India, Africa or indeed Ireland.
By its nature partition is the last resort when politics fail. Partition was usually thought of as a temporary solution, whereby time and trust could eradicate the requirement for it.
At the moment Northern Ireland doesn’t have a parliament, which in fairness was always a grandiose name for what’s little more than a large county council. We haven’t had a parliament as defined under the Government of Ireland Act since 1973. That hasn’t stopped local politicos during the tenure of our various assemblies acting with the magisterial prerogative of real ministers who serve in actual sovereign parliaments.
Northern Ireland was set up to fail and it did. Those who did the most to derail the toy-town parliament were those left to run it- namely unionists. With the advent of the civil rights campaign and international media attention, Stormont became an embarrassing carbuncle to Westminster.
Unlike some commentators or politicians, I have no problem saying the words Northern Ireland as it's where I live. It’s part of the UK, until as George V said, decided otherwise by the people who live here. The principle of consent is nothing new.
That doesn’t mean I will be celebrating the forthcoming centenary of either the Government of Ireland Act in 2020 or Northern Ireland becoming a legal entity in 1921. The early Northern Ireland failed the litmus test set by George V when he said that he hoped the new parliament “would be managed by wisdom and fairness with due regard to every faith”.
That aspiration was responded to by an unionist government which went on to abolish proportional representation, exercised extensive gerrymandering in Derry, Omagh and Fermanagh and then oversaw and encouraged a hugely oppressive policy of discrimination in employment.
The beleaguered Sinn Féin president, Mary Lou McDonald, says she won’t be celebrating the creation of Northern Ireland and for once I agree with her. The DUP have unsurprisingly called for a public holiday to mark the occasion.
There does need to be a discussion around the issue of partition and its causes.
Despite standing defiantly in front of Stormont, Lord Carson, the architect of loyalist resistance - and some would say treason against the British government of the day - believed that the creation of Stormont was a sign of failure. He was right.
Since the formation of Northern Ireland and the closure of its parliament in 1973, we have witnessed the tragedy of a futile, bloody and unwarranted war by the IRA, a murderous and sectarian campaign by loyalist paramilitaries and a senseless counter-productive security response by state forces. Red lines of division run deep through streets and towns as well as between families and neighbours.
The failure of Sinn Féin to understand the depth of hurt their commemorations create for victims of IRA violence is staggering. The sheer stubbornness of the DUP to demonstrate any semblance of respect for Irish identity alienates even the most moderate of nationalists.
Somehow both main parties are titling towards windmills that don’t exist. There is no panacea in a united Ireland created by a majority of 50 per cent plus one of nationalists over unionists - no matter how legally valid; nor is there any security in trying to pretend that Northern Ireland will remain for ever within the UK. The reality is when you vote Sinn Féin you get DUP and when you vote DUP you get Sinn Fein. It’s the ultimate Mexican stand off.
WB Yeats once warned the first Free State government against illiberal laws, saying: “ If it ever comes that North and South unite, the North will not give up any liberty which she already possesses under her constitution”.
One hundred years on and the ire of Yeats is misdirected.
