A Tangled Web

Tom Foolery!



You've got to hand it to Tom Griffin of the Irish World. There are few who can spin the advances of Irish republicanism in comparable fashion. Every time the Brownshirts make another Hannibalistic advance into the cradle of democracy, you can almost hear Griffin salivating with sheer delight. In the piece in question, Griffin seeks to draw an analogy between the Fianna Fail movement of the 1920's and today's Gaelic incarnation of the Fuhrer. He appears to conclude that the Republic of Ireland's largest party must find its salvation in organising on an all-Ireland basis in order to compete with Gerry and his kalashnikov-toting 'chinas'.



Predictions of the entry of Southern parties into Ulster's politics are as frequent as similar prognostications about joint authority. Yet, they have not come to pass. Sinn Fein organises on an all-Ireland basis because, contrary to the claims of peace process bigwigs, Sinn Fein/IRA does not recognise Northern Ireland's rightful place within the United Kingdom (I won't dwell on the fact that the 'principle of consent' was supposed to be the fundamental aspect of the same Agreement hailed by nationalist Ireland). Every other party in the Irish Republic is a direct product of the evolution of that same polity in its 26-county configuration. Should Southern parties every consider progressing north of the border, they would only find that their presence would fragment the nationalist vote: it certainly would not attract the votes of the British population who would, in turn, view the presence of parties from another country as a hostile act, contrary to the constitutional wishes of Northern Ireland's greater number.



The Republic of Ireland definitely wants to stick its interfering beak into the Province as far as the outworkings of the Belfast Agreement are concerned. However, it doesn't want to handle the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of precipitating an inherently unstable situation on its own doorstep. If parties in Dublin want to fend off the rise of Sinn Fein, they should stop treating republicanism with kid gloves, not pretending - as the Brownshirts do - that an internationally legitimate border does not exist.