On Wednesday night RTE and the BBC linked up for a ground-breaking broadcast, a Nolan Live/Prime Time special.
by Brian John Spencer
For one evening we had a United Ireland, of sorts. From Bushmills to Bantry Bay, from Portadown to Portlaoise people across the island of Ireland came together before their screens for one unique political debate.
Watch on on RTE player here.
Truly ecumenical, it was cross-community and cross border; perhaps a little like when Ireland play rugby. For a moment it didn’t really matter if someone was Protestant or Catholic, unionist or nationalist. Fittingly the Prime Time show had the title, ‘Ireland’s Call.’
However the special production, presented by Stephen Nolan and Miriam O’Callaghan, quickly illuminated how far away a reunified 32 county Ireland is.
The citizens of the south will likely be unfamiliar with the BBC presenter Stephen Nolan. The Belfast lad is quite the contrast to the collected Miriam, a motor-mouthed provocateur notorious for playing on tribal passions. But it sells, and ultimately its popularity reflects the underlying mindset of the Northern people.
The debate began with a look at the people’s views on a United Ireland; Only 36% of Southerners and 13% of Northerners want a United Ireland in the short to medium term.
For the people of Northern Ireland only, 27% of Catholics want a United Ireland in the short to medium term, and a meagre 3% of Northern Protestants aspire to this constitutional change.
Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty robustly defended his party’s aspiration for an all-Ireland parliament in the face of weak appetite, citing the benefits a reunified Germany reaped.
The DUP’s some-time leader Arlene Foster was ebullient, “the Union is secure” and “people are comfortable working the Union in Northern Ireland” she exclaimed. Yet, while Catholics may be happy with the status quo of the Union they are reluctant to vote for the unionist DUP party. That’s Ian Paisley’s party of course, once infamous for its anti-Catholicism.
But this issue is not just about sentiment and passions, it’s the economy, stupid.
Jimmy Deenihan TD was asked by Nolan, “Can the Irish government afford a United ireland at this moment in time?” The Minister for the Diaspora replied laconically: “Well no, really…” And laughter erupted.
BBC political correspondent Mark Devenport called this the “Well no, really moment,” the soundbite of the show that will go down in history.
Debate turned then to the hot button issue of identity. Southerners are perfectly indifferent to this, they’re just Irish; they are probably perfectly unaware of how controversial it is in the black North.
Identity is the defining and ever-present issue in Northern Ireland.
In Belfast the poll found 56% are British and 29% self-define as Irish. For the rest of Northern Ireland it’s 41% and 28% respectively.
There’s more to this. The founding father of Northern Ireland and Ulster unionism, Edward Carson was a Dubliner and a proud Irishman.
Early unionist leaders after partition patriotically proclaimed their Irishness. However this dissolved under the death, devastation and division of the Troubles. Unionist leader Brian Faulkner said on July 12 1949: “They [the South] have no right to the title Ireland, a name of which we are just as proud as they.”
Speak to unionist and loyalist hardliners today and they will rage and recoil at any suggestion they are Irish.
They say they are British, more British than Finchley, to be precise.
In a perfect parallel, the Republican heartlands of Belfast are more Irish than Dublin on a Saint Paddy’s Day.
The division in the North has birthed exaggerated and extreme identities on both sides, intensely deep Greens and Oranges.
On a positive note the Finance Minister Arlene Foster said while she considered herself Northern Irish she was a supporter of Irish Rugby. Then the show looked at the results of how the South sees the North and vice-versa.
Only 1% of Northern Catholics have never been South of the border, and a surprisingly large number of Northern Protestants have been south, 87% in fact.
A quick quiz of members of the public on the streets of Belfast and Dublin showed that public figures connected with the North aren’t particularly well known among southerners, and vice-versa.
Northerners still have outmoded preconceptions of the South. Many still think the cars are battered and the roads are pot-holed, and priests line the streets.
Staunch unionists would remain dubious of the Dail and TDs. Andy Pollak wrote that until recently “many in the [DUP] would have seen [southern parties] as only slightly less abhorrent and anti-unionist than the IRA.”
The Southern domiciled Northern protestant Andy Pollak then said pertinently, “Let’s try to become better friends North and South and on the basis of that we can talk about constitutional issues.”
Interestingly the poll showed us that the North and the South are walking in unison on the issue of gay marriage.
However, the referendum victory could not be replicated in the North as Sinn Fein has taken ownership of the issue of gay marriage and this would dissuade many liberal and amenable protestants.
The unionist leader Mike Nesbitt said after the May 22 2015 plebiscite:
“This is a seismic shift in attitude within Irish society. No longer can we consider the Republic to be governed by the Catholic Church.”
Where that, or any of this, leaves reunification remains about as clear as mud.
The RTE/BBC collaboration was a historic moment, a fantastic step forward for the people of Ireland. Before we can reunify the land mass we need to familiarise and reunify the people. Suspicion, mistrust, stereotypes and misunderstandings still exist between the two jurisdictions and this forum is the perfect vehicle for breaking myths and establishing friendships.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
