Posted by Jim on November 18, 2018
By Emma DeSouza
For most people, their identity is not something that can be taken away
from them or questioned. Identity is complex, it’s personal, it’s, for
me, unexplainable.
The UK government maintains that it is fully committed to the Good
Friday Agreement whilst simultaneously contesting the treaty through the
courts. It reassures both the Irish government and EU that it will
uphold its commitments whilst fighting to break them.
Described as ‘the condition of being oneself’ and protected in countless
treaties worldwide, identity has been long accepted as a basic human
right. It was an overriding principle in Northern Ireland throughout the
Troubles and paramount to the Good Friday Agreement -and it is here
where it carries an even greater significance and weight.
The treaty affords the people of Northern Ireland the right to choose
their identity; a choice that was essential in bringing peace and one
which is being habitually diminished, challenged and refused by the UK
Government.
I am an Irish citizen, born in Northern Ireland whose Good Friday
Agreement right to identify as such has been repeatedly denied by the UK
Home Office. An identity that I didn’t chose or consider in a place
where religion is often synonymous with it. Even as a child, I knew when
I was safe or unsafe and understood the reason for that was my Irish
identity.
The political landscape and attitudes have changed massively but the
divisions of my childhood created in me a unique affinity for my
identity. Its true worth and importance wasn’t something I often thought
of until I began the process of stabilising my non-EU spouse’s status
when I’d find myself questioning the validity of my lifelong self.
In 2015, I applied for a European Economic Area (EEA) residence card for
my husband as the spouse of an Irish national. This was refused by the
UK Home Office who claim that I am “automatically a British Citizen” as
I was “clearly born in the United Kingdom.” The Good Friday Agreement
states that the people of Northern Ireland can chose to be Irish or
British or both. The right to self-identify and, in my case, the right
to not be British is central to the agreement itself.
The department offered, as it oftentimes does, the option to renounce
this unclaimed citizenship. The first line of the form is a declaration
‘I am a British citizen.’ It seemed to me, that in the eyes of the UK
Government my choice to be Irish was wrong, lesser, unimportant and
irrelevant, a feeling that has not subsided.
Appealing came at an immeasurable personal cost, no freedom of movement
for 2 years being one. The judge ruled in our favour stating that: “The
constitutional changes effected by the Good Friday Agreement with its
annexed British-Irish Agreement, the latter amounting to an
international treaty between sovereign governments supersede the British
Nationality Act 1981 in so far as the people of Northern Ireland are
concerned.
“He or she is permitted to choose their nationality as a birthright.
Nationality cannot therefore be imposed on them at birth.”
The UK Home Office now seek to overturn this ruling, one that has
already been upheld in a second decision. The department claims the
judge “misconstrued the effect of the British-Irish Agreement,” stating
that “a treaty to which the UK government is a party does not alter the
laws of the United Kingdom.” A worrying argument.
The UK government maintains that it is fully committed to the Good
Friday Agreement whilst simultaneously contesting the treaty through the
courts. It reassures both the Irish government and EU that it will
uphold its commitments whilst fighting to break them.
During the three years of our marriage – and the three years of this
legal battle – we’ve uncovered a systemic, institutionalised disregard
for the Good Friday Agreement. The failings within the Home Office are
at every level. We’ve seen citizens be told they’ve obtained their Irish
passport by fraud, that their child has no right to residence in
Northern Ireland, that they have no right to residence with an Irish
passport.
A community within Northern Ireland is, in the here and now, being
marginalised, penalised and discriminated against, the effect of which
is catastrophic. And the cause is their identity.
This presupposition taken by the UK Home Office further cements not the
citizenship clause of the Good Friday Agreement, but the fear that
people of Northern Ireland will become second class EU citizens after
Brexit.
The people of Northern Ireland did not vote for Brexit and a simmering
disquiet can be felt across the country as the deadline approaches,
evidenced in the Letter to Leo campaign of which I was a signatory. The
campaign directly calls on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to stand by his
government’s commitments. As co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement,
the Irish government has a responsibility to protect the interests of
its people north of the border.
The atmosphere is palpable – and the fear growing – that the future
Northern Ireland has been working towards will be taken apart by Brexit.
We have no guarantees and no protections; just a clear gradual erosion
of the treaty each side is promising to protect. No matter which way I
look at Brexit, it is set to breach the treaty. If it isn’t the border
issue, then it’s citizenship rights where there can be no detrimental or
differential treatment between the two communities of Northern Ireland.
The intention or motivation behind the UK Home Office relentlessly
appealing this court ruling remains unclear. What is clear, however, is
there is a price on an Irish identity in Northern Ireland. It is losing
your right to work. It is losing your right to travel. It is losing the
right to be at your grandmother’s side as she passes. It is losing your
right to be who you are. You have to ask yourself, ‘what is your
identity worth?’
We return to court on November 26th with the argument that identity is
tantamount to the Good Friday Agreement. In the words of Bill Clinton in
1998, “In the days to come there may be those who try to undermine this
great achievement. All the parties and the rest of us must stand
shoulder to shoulder to defy any such appeal.”
* Emma and Jake deSouza have launched a fundraising campaign to assist their
legal battle. It is online at:
Posted by Jim on
(By ireland-calling.com)
Bridget Dirrane is a remarkable person in the history of Ireland. She
associated with key figures in the Easter Rising of 1916, including
Padraig Pearse and Countess Markievicz. She knew Maud Gonne, the
beautiful actress who broke the heart of W B Yeats.
Dirrane later helped President Kennedy’s election campaign in America.
Throughout her life she survived two World Wars, seven Popes and was
involved in several significant historical events.
Dirrane was born on 15 November 1894 on Inishmore, the largest of the
Aran Islands off Galway. She was the youngest of the eight children and
enjoyed a happy childhood with her brothers and sisters.
She was a staunch republican who managed to listen in on a conversation
involving Padraig Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and other republicans as they
planned the Easter Rising. Dirrane was carrying out her household tasks
and overheard the men talking. Speaking about the conversation she
heard, Dirrane said:
“They were talking about a rebellion, and I knew the way they were
talking that they didn’t want anyone to hear them but of course big
ears, I heard every word they said. Padraig Pearse was a very nice
gentleman. Very nice if you were to listen to him, but I wasn’t supposed
to listen.”
While working in Tipperary, she joined the Cumann na mBan, the
republican women’s organisation. She went on to train as a nurse in
Dublin.
Dirrane was visiting Claude Chevasse, a political campaigner for Irish
nationalism, at the same time the British raided his home. She was
arrested along with all others present.
Dirrane refused to be intimidated by the British troops. She was told
that if she were a man she would be killed, and that she should suffer
the same fate. She turned to the official and told him: “Shoot me if you
can, because there’s a thousand lives to give for the same cause.” The
official didn’t shoot her and she was arrested.
She was put in Mountjoy Gaol and protested by going on hunger strike.
She spent her time dancing and singing in Gaelic. When asked by one of
the guards why she was so happy Dirrane replied: “I’m so happy because
I’m doing a little bit for my country.”
She was released without charge after nine days. She later joked that
was too much trouble for them to deal with so they let her go.
Dirrane was part of the Cumann na mBan vigil outside Mountjoy the day
that IRA volunteer Kevin Barry was hanged. Barry had been involved in an
attack on an army tank in Dublin and arrested. He refused to reveal the
names of his comrades to the British, despite being tortured. He was
executed on 1st November 1920. Dirrane remembered the moment vividly:
“We heard the death bell and then there was silence.”
In 1927 Dirrane emigrated to America where she worked as a nurse in
Boston. She met and married a fellow Aran native called Ned Dirrane.
During the Second World War she tended to wounded American soldiers in
Mississippi. Dirrane was tragically widowed in 1940 when her husband Ned
died.
She returned to Boston after the war and embraced the advance in
technology by getting a driving licence and buying herself a car. She
drove up and down the country in her Chevrolet Bel Air to attend various
nursing assignments and do voluntary Catholic work.
During the 1960s, Dirrane was an active canvasser for John F Kennedy’s
presidential campaign and made a lasting impression on the party. She
was present when Hillary Clinton was made the first free woman of Galway
City and former US Ambassador Jean Kennedy-Smith and Senator Edward
Kennedy also later visited her in Ireland.
“What I will leave is the sunshine to the flowers, honey to the bees,
the moon above in the heavens for all those in love and my beloved Aran
Islands to the seas.”
Dirrane moved back to Aran in 1966 and married her late husband’s
brother Pat. Never one to be afraid of new experiences, she was one of
the passengers on the first aeroplane to ever fly to the Aran Islands.
After the death of her second husband Pat in 1990, Dirrane moved to St
Francis’ Community Nursing Unit in Newcastle, Galway. She wrote her
autobiography, A Woman of Aran with the matron, Rose O’Connor.
In recognition to her life of service to others, Dirrane received an
honorary degree from NUI, Galway in 1998 at the age of 103.
It is unclear as to whether Dirrane was ever officially the oldest woman
in Ireland, but a nurse at her care home stated she was “certainly in
the top two or three”.
The Irish Independent were convinced and celebrated her 108th birthday
calling her “Ireland’s oldest woman, Bridget Dirrane”.
She credited her long and active life to her religious faith, a good
upbringing and a healthy diet. Bridget Dirrane passed away on New Year’s
Eve 2003 at the age of 109.
Posted by Jim on November 17, 2018
A shocking British military archive discovered by a grandson of victims
of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre of 1971 proves that the Royal Ulster
Constabulary police originated and disseminated “a line” falsely stating
that the atrocity was an IRA ‘own goal’, just over 4 hours after the
bombing.
An entry in a high-level British Army log on the night of the attack
states that the “RUC have a line that the bomb in the pub was a bomb
designed to be used elsewhere, left in the pub to be picked up by
Provisional IRA. Bomb went off and was a mistake. RUC press office have
a line on it – NI should deal with them”
No police investigation has ever confirmed that the genesis of the
McGurk’s Bar disinformation was the RUC itself and it was this agency
which disseminated the false information so quickly after the attack. No
police investigation has been able to substantiate or even provenance
the initial falsehood that the McGurk’s Bar bombing was the result an
IRA “mistake”.
The families have challenged PSNI Chief George Hamilton to substantiate
the lie now or admit the police created it.
“It is obvious from this startling document that the British Army washed
its hands of the RUC “line”, according to Ciaran MacAirt of the Paper
Trail charity, who carried out the research.
“Normally British Army PR handled ‘terrorist-related’ questions from the
press but had referred all queries to RUC press office for the ‘line’
deliberately invented by the police.”
The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) document also reveals that the
British Army had initiated a vehicle checkpoint operation within 3
minutes of the bombing to try to snare a suspicious car that was
reported to have been involved in the attack — and that loyalists were
suspected.
The British Army Brigade and HQNI Command also received an expert report
confirming the bomb had been placed in the ground floor entrance.
The file with the new information was only discovered as a result of a
year-long battle via the Freedom of Information Act.
Mr MacAirt, whose grandmother was murdered in the attack and his
grandfather badly injured, said the documents were “the final, horrific
proof that the police originated and disseminated the heinous lie” that
the McGurk’s Bar bombing was an IRA own-goal.
“I demand that the Chief Constable proves the provenance of this lie and
substantiates it as the RUC in effect criminalised the innocent victims
of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre and allowed the perpetrators roam free and
kill again. If he cannot, he will be forced to admit that the police
quite simply created the lie to suit the police’s own warped and
sectarian agenda.”
The now defunct police Historical Enquiries Team (HET) has previously
claimed there was no evidence of bias in the original RUC investigation,
contradicting the finding of the Police Ombudsman.
Mr MacAirt said the families were still fighting the police after a
nearly four-year battle to quash the series of reports by the HET, all
of which sought to exonerate the RUC and perpetuate the cover-up.
“Yet again, it has been left to the family of victims to discover this
significant evidence,” he said. “We have had no faith in so-called
professional police investigators investigating the police cover-up of
the massacre. This latest discovery of vital evidence proves why we were
correct not to trust them.”
He said the PSNI’s Legacy Investigation Branch and the Director of
Historic Investigations at the Office of the Police Ombudsman had failed
to respond to his correspondence on the matter, and that a legal action
would be undertaken on behalf of the families.
“These actions include demands that the police quash its ludicrous HET
report into the atrocity and that the Attorney General gives our
families the proper inquest they rightfully deserve.”
A shocking British military archive discovered by a grandson of victims
of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre of 1971 proves that the Royal Ulster
Constabulary police originated and disseminated “a line” falsely stating
that the atrocity was an IRA ‘own goal’, just over 4 hours after the
bombing.
An entry in a high-level British Army log on the night of the attack
states that the “RUC have a line that the bomb in the pub was a bomb
designed to be used elsewhere, left in the pub to be picked up by
Provisional IRA. Bomb went off and was a mistake. RUC press office have
a line on it – NI should deal with them”
No police investigation has ever confirmed that the genesis of the
McGurk’s Bar disinformation was the RUC itself and it was this agency
which disseminated the false information so quickly after the attack. No
police investigation has been able to substantiate or even provenance
the initial falsehood that the McGurk’s Bar bombing was the result an
IRA “mistake”.
The families have challenged PSNI Chief George Hamilton to substantiate
the lie now or admit the police created it.
“It is obvious from this startling document that the British Army washed
its hands of the RUC “line”, according to Ciaran MacAirt of the Paper
Trail charity, who carried out the research.
“Normally British Army PR handled ‘terrorist-related’ questions from the
press but had referred all queries to RUC press office for the ‘line’
deliberately invented by the police.”
The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) document also reveals that the
British Army had initiated a vehicle checkpoint operation within 3
minutes of the bombing to try to snare a suspicious car that was
reported to have been involved in the attack — and that loyalists were
suspected.
The British Army Brigade and HQNI Command also received an expert report
confirming the bomb had been placed in the ground floor entrance.
The file with the new information was only discovered as a result of a
year-long battle via the Freedom of Information Act.
Mr MacAirt, whose grandmother was murdered in the attack and his
grandfather badly injured, said the documents were “the final, horrific
proof that the police originated and disseminated the heinous lie” that
the McGurk’s Bar bombing was an IRA own-goal.
“I demand that the Chief Constable proves the provenance of this lie and
substantiates it as the RUC in effect criminalised the innocent victims
of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre and allowed the perpetrators roam free and
kill again. If he cannot, he will be forced to admit that the police
quite simply created the lie to suit the police’s own warped and
sectarian agenda.”
The now defunct police Historical Enquiries Team (HET) has previously
claimed there was no evidence of bias in the original RUC investigation,
contradicting the finding of the Police Ombudsman.
Mr MacAirt said the families were still fighting the police after a
nearly four-year battle to quash the series of reports by the HET, all
of which sought to exonerate the RUC and perpetuate the cover-up.
“Yet again, it has been left to the family of victims to discover this
significant evidence,” he said. “We have had no faith in so-called
professional police investigators investigating the police cover-up of
the massacre. This latest discovery of vital evidence proves why we were
correct not to trust them.”
He said the PSNI’s Legacy Investigation Branch and the Director of
Historic Investigations at the Office of the Police Ombudsman had failed
to respond to his correspondence on the matter, and that a legal action
would be undertaken on behalf of the families.
“These actions include demands that the police quash its ludicrous HET
report into the atrocity and that the Attorney General gives our
families the proper inquest they rightfully deserve.”
Posted by Jim on
There were emotional scenes in a Belfast court this week as families of
the Ballymurphy massacre victims described their grief and loss after
British soldiers killed eleven civilians in 1971.
Briege Voyle told of how the death of her mother in Ballymurphy almost
50 years ago “destroyed” her family.
Her mother Joan Connolly was one of ten shot dead during a 36 hour
rampage by British paratroopers in west Belfast in August 1971.
At the Ballymurphy massacre inquest, sitting before Mrs Justice Keegan,
Ms Voyle took the stand to speak about her mother, who was killed when
she went to look for two of her daughters.
Ms Voyle said her mother, who lived on Ballymurphy Road, had initially
welcomed British soldiers into the area, making them sandwiches and tea.
She said her mother, who was shot on August 9 1971, believed “the army
would not hurt a woman”.
Ms Voyle revealed that the family only found out their mother had died
when their father went out looking for her and visited the morgue.
“When daddy came back, he was literally carried in, he was a broken man
because it was my mammy in the morgue,”she said.
“We were all screaming and crying and everybody was yelling and
neighbours started coming in.”
Ms Voyle added: “My mother was very dearly loved and has been very
dearly missed. Losing her destroyed our family”.
She also slammed rumours that her mother had been armed.
“I believe this to be untrue. My mother was not out trying to shoot
anyone when she was killed,” she said.
“I would like this inquest to help my mother to be remembered as the
person that she was and not what she was reported to be back then.”
JOSEPH MURPHY
Janet Donnelly, whose father Joseph Murphy was killed on August 9 1971,
also took to the stand, describing him as “a character” who
would make “time for people”.
“The [British] army opened fire on my daddy and he was shot in the right
leg,” she said.
“He had his right leg amputated on the Friday August 20 and died on
Sunday August 22.”
She said her mother was later diagnosed with cancer and died in August
2016 – 45 years after the death of her husband.
“They were reunited, when they were buried together,” she said.
“Over 47 years later we finally begin a process to which we hope will
finally bring about the truth as to how our daddy, husband, grandad was
killed in cold blood by the British Army.”
NOEL PHILLIPS
Marianne Phillips read a statement on behalf of her father, Kevin
Phillips, who is the brother of Noel Phillips, who was also killed on
August 9 1971.
She described him as “so quiet and sedate, really easy going and got on
with everybody”.
The family only found out Noel had been killed when they checked the
morgue.
“It was as if a big, black, heavy curtain just came down on top of
everyone, the atmosphere in the house just changed,” said Mr Phillips’
statement.
“Before Noel died we were all a big close family there was never a dull
moment, after his death everything just went black everything changed
for us there was no laughing or messing about, the normal things six
brothers would get up to, that all changed.
“We’ve listened to the lies told about Noel in the media, how all the
victims were gunmen and women.
“I don’t want an apology, I’m not interested, it’s too little, too late.
I want justice.
“I want their names cleared, that’s what all the Ballymurphy Massacre
families want, their names cleared and declared innocent”.
HUGH MULLAN
Patsy Mullan, a brother of Fr Hugh Mullan who was killed as he was
trying to help a wounded man, described him as “very helpful and kind”.
In a video statement played to court, Mr Mullan described the moment he
discovered his 38-year-old brother had been killed.
He said: “I listened to all the news reports and later that night I
heard a priest had been shot in Ballymurphy. I knew it would be him. So
I went to my mother’s and told her he had been shot but that he was ok.
I wasn’t sure if he was dead.
“When I was later told that he was dead, I phoned our doctor and asked
him to come to be with my mother as I didn’t know how she would cope
with this news.
“She was in a terrible state and had to be sedated.”
Fr Mullan’s niece, Geraldine McGrattan said: “When he died, it was so
unbelievable that another human being could take the life of this
special person who would never have hurt anyone, who would happily help
friends and strangers alike. I have seen people come to his door and
leave much happier and comforted with his help.
“My grandmother was devastated, my own mother was in shock, neither
woman ever fully recovered from his untimely and cruel death and both
would talk of him and cry for him right to the end of their lives.
“As a family we want this inquest to prove that my uncle was not a
gunman as was stated in some of the newspapers at the time. That he was
an innocent priest going about his pastoral duties.
“We want to know the truth about what happened.”
FRANK QUINN
The brother of 19-year-old Frank Quinn, who was shot dead after trying
to help a wounded man, said he was watching the news when they heard a
priest and a young man had been shot dead in the Ballymurphy area.
Pat Quinn, who was accompanied by another brother, Liam, in court said:
“My mother said ‘someone is going to have a sore heart tomorrow’. She
didn’t know the tragedy was coming to our door.
“The next morning, I was lying in bed. I was off on school holidays, my
daddy was away to work and my mummy was working in the Monarch laundry
part-time.
“I heard banging on the front door and as I came down the stairs I could
see my daddy through the glass door. I opened the door and I saw my
daddy crying. He was distraught.
“I said ‘daddy, what’s wrong?’. He walked past me and sat on the stairs
and said ‘Frank’s been shot’. I said ‘was he wounded? Was he wounded?’
and he said “no, he’s dead’.
“Those three words changed me and my family’s lives forever. My mother
was brought home from work. She was like a ghost. It was like hell on
earth that this was happening to our family.”
Angela Nolan, the daughter of Frank Quinn said: “So many memories that
we didn’t get to make because someone decided that it was ok to take him
from us, because he was a kind human being he went to help others. I
have always been proud of his bravery. Many a man would have walked
away.
“Our loss was heartbreaking.
“Growing up I could see how my friends had the protection of their daddy
being at home. I was jealous of the daddy’s girls and who knows how many
more siblings we may have had.”
DANNY TEGGART
The inquest also heard how Danny Teggart had found out he was going to
become a grandfather again, just hours before he was shot dead on August
9.
His daughter Alice Harper said he had been “all delighted” after she
told him she was expecting a baby, when he called round “to see if we
were all right” amid the tumult unleashed by the introduction of
internment that day.
After taking her infant son to give her “some rest”, Mr Teggart asked
her to give him a haircut.
“I cut his tiny black curls and brushed the hair up and put it into a
wee horse and cart ornament.
“Little did I know that I would later identify him in the morgue by
those same black curls. He left my house that day and that was the last
time I seen my father alive.”
Aged just 23, Mrs Harper told how, after going house-to-house the next
morning asking neighbours if they had seen him, she went to the army
post at Henry Taggart Memorial Hall.
“I asked `Did you arrest my father?’… and they just said no we hadn’t
time for arrests we only had time for killing.”
Mr Teggart’s family also suffered financially after his death.
The father-of-13 would break up sticks and sell them around the streets,
also working as a `rag and bone’ man and cleaning windows for “all the
big stores” in the city centre to bring in extra money.
EDDIE DOHERTY
Father-of-four, Eddie Doherty “just lived for (wife) Marie and their
kids”, his sister Kathleen McCarry told the coroner.
“He was content with what he had and he was in his own wee orbit that he
owned his house, and provided for his kids. He was just happy to be a
husband and a daddy.
“On payday he would give Marie his unopened pay packet, she would then
buy him his cigarettes for the week. Not too many men did that in those
days.”
She recalled seeing him the day after internment started “in an awful
state about Father Mullan and Mrs Connolly and the others being shot”.
Mr Doherty left his sister Theresa’s house at 4.35pm.
The family heard on the 10pm news bulletin “a gunman who had been
operating in Ardoyne the night before and his body had been dumped in
Whiterock. He said he had been named as Eamon Doherty”.
“My mummy went to pieces, we all went to pieces, it was like a nightmare
you were never wakening from.
“There were times we couldn’t find her and would have to go out looking
for her, we would find her at the grave washing it down.”
After a nervous breakdown and spending time in Purdysburn psychiatric
hospital, his mother “died of a broken heart seven years after Eddie”.
“For seven years we just watched her deteriorate. She went from this
strong woman who washed the dead, delivered babies, did amazing things,
to a woman who was lost.”
Mrs McCarry described a family “torn apart with grief… not only did we
lose Eddie we lost Marie too”, his widow dying nine years later of a
heart attack aged just 40, leaving their children orphans.
JOE CORR
Father-of-seven Joe Corr “lived for his family, he even took on
part-time jobs window cleaning and that to bring in a bit of extra
money”.
They were preparing to emigrate to Australia when he was killed.
He and his son Joe had been the top of their street “when the soldiers
started shooting… everybody scattered running everywhere”, his
daughter Eileen McKeown told the coroner.
“My daddy didn’t get a chance to run when he was shot. Joe returned home
unaware of what had happened to daddy.”
Her brother was devastated to discover the body he had stepped over to
help someone else “was his daddy”.
“He had this thing in his head that if he had let the other person go
that he could’ve helped his daddy… It haunted him for the rest of his
life.”
After his death, the family received hate mail from Mr Corr’s former
workplace, Shorts, after news reports he had been a gunman.
“I want my daddy’s name cleared,” Mrs McCarry said.
Meanwhile, the coroner has referred a comment discouraging former soldiers from
giving evidence to the attorney general. Former soldier Alan Barry, who
is involved in the campaign group Justice for Northern Ireland Veterans
(JFNIV), advised soldiers involved not to cooperate with requests to
attend the inquests. He told them that if they are subpoenaed by the
Ballymurphy inquest to say they “suffer from a total loss of memory”.
* Two relatives brought the subject of the Ballymurphy families’ campaign for
justice for their loved ones to a wider audience: Brian McKerr, the
grandson of massacre victim John McKerr, addressed a rally in Melbourne
this week, while Carmel Quinn, sister of victim John Laverty, addressed
a meeting of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the USA.
Posted by Jim on
The DUP leadership is completely at odds with civic unionism after a
draft Brexit deal won praise across the north of Ireland, particularly
from farmers and business interests who see significant advantages in
proposed arrangements to facilitate trade with both Britain and the EU.
Even before the text became known, DUP MPs had vowed to vote against it
in the Westminster parliament. In doing so, they fully aligned
themselves with Tories who are implacably opposed to the EU and who are
seeking to topple British Prime Minister Theresa May.
By doing so, they effectively withdrew their critical support for
Theresa May’s minority government and upended the delicate balance of
power at Westminster.
Ironically, the draft deal, published on Wednesday night, complies with
unionist demands for no trade barriers between the Six County and
Britain.
The deal between London and the EU also provides long-delayed
legislation for the ‘backstop’ of no remilitarised border through
Ireland. Beyond an initial transition period, it will ensure businesses
in the north of Ireland have full access to markets across the EU and
Britain, making the Six Counties a bridge between the two trading areas,
rather than a barrier.
The draft Protocol document also contains a section on rights of
individuals in the north of Ireland, and ensuring that those rights
continue to be protected. It specifically allows for the continuation of
the North’s Human Rights and Equality Commissions.
By scheduling customs authorisations to take place directly at
businesses, the major tangible change under the Brexit deal will be an
increase in agricultural safety and hygiene inspections. After years of
difficult negotiations, that outcome has been widely hailed as a good
one for both parts of Ireland.
Despite a full year of vacillation by the British Prime Minister,
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar insisted Mrs May had “honoured her promise” on
the border backstop, initially made last December.
“No international negotiation gives one side everything it wants,” he
said.
This was an acknowledgement that the Dublin government had failed to
prevent the introduction of a proposed review mechanism, which could see
an arbitration panel decide to bring the backstop deal for the border to
a premature end.
“That backstop must be maintained and protected,” said Sinn Fein’s Mary
Lou McDonald in a statement this weekend.
“It provides the bottom line and is our insurance policy against the
worst excesses of Brexit, which we know will be a disaster for this
country.
But a DUP MP sparked angry exchanges when he insisted the deal was a
disaster for unionists, and that the overwhelmingly unionist Ulster
Farmers group were “wrong”.
Chief executive Wesley Aston of the powerful Ulster Farmers Union (UFU)
had said his group was supporting the deal, and asked the DUP to vote
for it it comes before the Westminster parliament. He also warned that
the other option, a no-deal scenario where Britain cuts all ties with
the EU, would be “absolutely disastrous” for the agri-business and
farming industry in the North.
“I don’t believe they have read the detail of this, they have not read
the 500 pages,” Jeffrey Donaldson said. “There are serious
constitutional and economic implications of this deal for Northern
Ireland”.
There have been increasingly hostile reactions from business, farming
and manufacturing interests to the DUP’s rhetoric and stance on the
deal. Former UFU president Ian Marshall accused Donaldson of being
“disrespectful” to the farming community, while business leader Richard
Hogg of Manufacturing NI said that unionist politicians should ‘get over
themselves’.
Tory hardliners had worked to consolidate a coalition in favour of their
planned coup against Theresa May, with dire warnings of ‘Dublin Rule’.
Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, without having read the text,
claimed it was “vassal state stuff” because Britain would be required to
remain in compliance with EU regulations while in the Customs Union.
“For the first time since partition, Dublin – under these proposals –
would have more say in some aspects of the government of Northern
Ireland than London,” he said.
Notorious ‘Brextremist’ Jacob Rees-Mogg also foresaw a British “vassal
state” enslaved by Dublin and Brussels.
“It is a failure of the government’s negotiating position, it is a
failure to deliver on Brexit and it is potentially dividing up the
United Kingdom.
“It is very hard to see any reason why the Cabinet should support
Northern Ireland being ruled from Dublin.”
Some DUP MPs sought to relive the outrage which greeted the Anglo-Irish
Agreement of 1985.
“Leo Varadkar.. has ostracised and angered unionists to a similar
level,” sad Ian Paisley. A glowering Sammy Wilson compared EU
bureaucrats to the IRA: “If the EU think that what the IRA couldn’t
achieve, they’re going to achieve, they’ve got another thought coming to
them.”
Prominent loyalist Jamie Bryson called for a “mobilisation”.
“This ‘deal’ will not be tolerated or accepted,” he said. The PUL
[Protestant Ulster Loyalist] community of NI will never permit what this
deal enables – Dublin to de-facto rule over over NI.”
Meanwhile, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has urged Sinn
Fein to take its seats in the House of Commons for the key vote on the
draft Brexit treaty.
The DUP’s ten seats at Westminster remain influential, and pressure on
Sinn Fein to take their seats has resurfaced.
Although it recognises British rule in the north of Ireland in 1998,
Sinn Fein has never taken its seats, which would involve swearing an
oath of allegiance to the English queen. The move would likely be seen
as a betrayal by some nationalists, but potentially welcomed as a
pragmatic initiative by others.
Coveney saying that the lack of nationalist MPs in Westminster was
“skewing the debate”.
“If this vote in Westminster is lost by two or three votes and Sinn Fein
are standing outside speaking to the media, but not voting, I think
people will rightly ask some pretty serious questions of them.”
In response, Mary Lou McDonald accused Coveney of “playing to the
gallery” during his Fine Gael party conference, which is taking place in
Dublin this weekend.
“He knows Sinn Fein has an abstentionist policy, he knows full well that
the British parliamentarians have to arrive at their decision, he knows
that Sinn Fein cannot ride in on its white charger and make all of this
go away.
“The Tanaiste has urged measure in the comments that people make in
terms of seeing this deal over the line. I think he needs to practise
what he preaches.”
She also urged Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to be cautious in his public
statements after he sought to take credit for the deal on Wednesday night.
“I think the Taoiseach and Tanaiste as they speak to their party
conference this weekend need to bear in mind that Brexit is for keeps,
it is not done yet, we are still in the middle of a very, very dangerous
scenario for this entire country,” she said.