It's a bloody shame

I’m disappointed. Seriously, I am. I don’t deny that quarter of a million men and the same number of women signing  up to use force against Britain if it tried to pass a bill in its own parliament - that’s impressive. At once cocking a snook at the notion of Irish democracy  AND British democracy  in the one signature! Or rather half a million signatures.  But the thing that always impressed me was those guys who signed it in their own blood.  Eek. That’s like one of those gangster movies where the guy holds his hand over a naked flame to show how tough and impervious to pain he is.  And maybe you know someone who told you that his or her grandfather signed the Covenant in his own blood. I know when I did Whose Past Is It Anyway?, Ian Paisley Jr told me that his grandfather signed the Covenant in his own blood.

Except now it’s beginning to look like somebody’s been telling porky-pies. No vein-opening, no dipping in the nib to get a bit more of the red stuff. Except for one guy, according to Newsline 630 on BBC TV the other night. And his name wasn’t Paisley, it was Stafford or some such. (Thinks: maybe he was Ian’s maternal grandfather.) But even there, when the scientists did a test on that one signature, they declared there was only a 10% chance it was actual blood the chap used.  Very likely the lot of them went the conventional ink route.

Aggghh guuuuyyyss! You’re no fun. Ordinary ink - what wimps! And who know, maybe all that stuff about taking up arms against Mother Britain was all pretend as well. It could have been a huge bluff - there’s no way we’ll ever know. Because when the whistle was blown for the start of what would be the First World War, all the signees or a fair number of them went straight off to fight for the country that they’d just finished saying they’d fight against.  Could it all. Have been. A giant. Leg-pull?? Surely not. Think how silly that’d make the 30,000 marchers today look.

Dear Peter

AN OPEN LETTER TO PETER ROBINSON

Dear Peter

 I think you’re right. From your point of view, that is.  You’ve called on nationalists to “show respect for unionism" by referring to the state by its official title ‘Northern Ireland’.  You figure that use of other titles like ‘”the north”or “the six counties’”or “the north of Ireland” are disrespectful and “an act of denial”. 

Indeed. What someone calls something often indicates what s/he thinks of it. If a man calls his wife ‘darling sweetie-pie’, he’s indicating that he holds her in his affection; if he calls her ‘you great lolloping moo-cow’, he’s telling her she ranks fairly low in his estimation.  When people call this north-eastern corner ‘the six counties’ or ‘the north’, they’re indicating that they see Ireland, despite partition, as one country. Like you, I can see why that might get up a unionist nose or two. 

At the same time, Peter, are you maybe being a teensy bit brass-necked? For decades now nationalists/republicans have been listening to you and other unionists talking about ‘The Province’. “We’re campaigning right across the Province”, you say, when you mean “We’re campaigning right across Northern Ireland”.  You don’t think it shows a certain lack of respect for the good people of Monaghan, Cavan and (Jimmy’s winnin’ matches) Donegal?  I was born in Ballyshannon Peter, and you’ve just erased my birth-place. Yes I know, you’ve also erased Clontibret, ach sin sceal eile – we’ll talk about that another time.

And then (sigh) there’s Ulster. Ah, Ulster. As in BBC Radio Ulster, as in the Ulster Farmers’ Union, as in Ulster Unionist Party ( yes, of course, it may not be an issue much longer, but still). All the many and varied Ulsters that are actually too small for their boots. 

So look, in the interests of peace and harmony, Peter, here’s the deal. Even though to refer to the ‘Six Counties’ is impeccably accurate, even though ‘north of Ireland’ is as geographically accurate as ‘Northern Ireland’, even though ‘North-East Ireland’ would be a  more accurate title than either of the last two – despite all those evens, let’s spit on our palms and slap hands:  you agree to campaign for all those references to Ulster/Province to be adjusted, I’ll be happy to recommend reference to Northern Ireland. Deal or no deal?

Mind you, I acknowledge that when you did your insulting-to-unionism speech, it was directed at a unionist audience.  You were explaining the Covenant to them – that unionists 100 years ago “saw their very way of life as being under the gravest threat and they were prepared to do whatever might become necessary to defend their position”.  You didn’t say “Sometimes violence is the only answer, and that’s what we unionist were prepared to resort to if we didn’t get our way”. Because if you’d said that, it would have meant you were condoning violence. And if you did that, crikey, where would that leave all those DUP denunciations of the blood-soaked IRA?  You and I both know, Peter, that the signing of the Covenant didn’t just gather hundreds of thousands of names – it put the threat of violence on the table of Irish politics.  It meant that the second decade of the twentieth century became one of the  bloodiest we’ve known.  In fact, if you had spoken plainly, the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s could have echoed Shylock in The Merchant of Venice: “The villainy you teach me I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”

So it’s sort of ironic for you in the one speech to ask nationalists/republicans to call a spade a Northern Ireland shovel, while at the same time ducking away from calling the signing of the Covenant what it was: a gun to the head of democracy and nationalism. But that’s OK, my offer still stands. You see to it that all those geographically illiterate  Ulsters and Provinces are decommissioned, and I’ll publicly recommend that this carefully carved-out statelet be referred to as Northern Ireland. 

Yours etc,

Five things we know after last night's Nolan Show

1.  

          Does violence pay?  That was  one of the questions Stephen Nolan asked Gerry Kelly on TV last night. Gerry chose to answer by pointing out that, regardless of his past – of which he’s never made a secret – he was elected by the mandate of the people who voted for him. This of course dodged the question, the answer to which is “Yes, violence pays if it’s big enough”.. That’s why, in these straitened times, the US last year spent $171 billion on the military, China $143 billion,  Russia a measly $72 million and Britain  a puny $62.7 billion. So yes, Stephen, violence or the threat of violence pays. Wasn’t the signing of the Ulster Covenant essentially that: a threat of violence?

2.     Does being called loyalists demonise a community? Last night Winston Irvine seemed to think the answer is Yes but in fact it’s No. What it does is neatly separate those unionists who don’t live in working-class districts from those who do. That’s not demonizing. That’s what’s called having your cake and eating it. They’re unionists, those working-class loyalists, but they’re not respectable, middle-class unionists like usuns.

3.     Are working-class loyalist/unionist areas more neglected than those in nationalist/republican areas? Despite the plight of those in the Shankill, the answer is No. Chris Donnelly from the Sluggerotoole website last night offered facts and figures which neatly squashed the idea that working-class unionists are getting nathin’, while those in republican working-class districts are on board a gravy-train.

4.     Those Orange bands passing St Patrick’s Church next Saturday: is confining them to playing hymns a reasonable compromise? The answer is No. For the same reason the answer would be No if they’d been given permission to play a selection of Beach Boys numbers. The Nolan programme touched on it and then moved smartly away: it’s fairly common knowledge that some hymns have scurrilous, anti-Catholic lyrics attached to them. Playing them will be an act of provocation to which the Parades Commission has given a green light.

5.     In the light of last night’s announcement, will Orangemen now sit down with residents of republican/nationalist areas and talk about contentious parades?   The answer is No. Not before this coming Saturday, not before next Spring and in some cases never, never, never, never. 

About last night...

Whew!  Still recovering from a great night last night - the Dublin launch of 'Whose Past Is It Anyway?' Having invited Professor Diarmaid Ferriter to be the guest speaker, I suddenly had a sickening realization that I know only a handful of people in Dublin these days, where once I knew so many. But ain't it true: it's times like these you find out who your friends are. Thanks to the contact work of truly sound people like my sister Philomena,  the Delahuntys, the McDermotts,  Jim Sharkey, Marius Harkin, Tony Jordan and Charlotte Joyce,  not to mention the wonderful Maureen and Hugh Taggart working their charm at a distance of 4,000 miles, we had a capacity crowd and a splendid evening. Diarmaid Ferriter gave an energetic and insightful talk, your humble servant threw in his uninformed two bits' worth, and then everyone got half-smashed on the wine...No, no, that last bit's a lie. We're much too civilized for all that - or old or something. Anyway, if you haven't got your copy of the book by now, you're clearly a hopeless case, and while I'm named after the patron saint of such, I'll leave you to wallow in your ignorance. If you've bought it, you're clearly a man/woman of good taste, intelligence and probably good looks.

Speaking of which, I'm going to try to 'embed'  a slideshow of last night. I don't really know what the word means, let alone how to do it, but I'll try. See above...

Loadsamony revisited

I'm sitting here drumming my fingers, waiting for a call from the Nolan radio show about the recent talk of taxing the rich. It's an interesting idea, isn't it? Odd that it hasn't been seriously tried before.

Maybe that's because the combined wealth of Cameron's cabinet is £70 million. Cameron himself is worth around £4 million. Kind of difficult to bring yourself to stick a needle in your own eye, I suppose.  But there is a pressing need: according to the latest Sunday Times  Rich List, the wealth of the super-rich has grown by nearly 5% since the recession.  And that's only counting 'identifiable wealth' - their bank accounts, for example, aren't open to scrutiny.

I'll avoid commenting on the wealth of the man who owns the Sunday Times  and point out that it's not just a British or Irish issue: a study by James Henry, a former chief economist of the consultancy McKinsey  shows that a global super-elite has at least £13 trillion squirreled away in secret tax havens. (In case you're having difficulty grasping what a trillion is, it's 1,000 billion.) Henry says that's a conservative estimate - it could be as much as £18 trillion, because there are countries like the UK which don't allow access to data like bank accounts.

Since starting this posting, I've been on air, where David Vance was my sparring partner. I quite liked David, the one time I briefly met him, but he'll have to get rid of the habit of putting words in people's mouths, especially mine. His belief is that the rich are being over-taxed and they're the job-providers.  Tired cliché, I'm afraid: we heard all this trickle-down economics back in the 1980s with the ghastly Thatcher. Let the market rip and the rich will make a packet and the less rich will benefit as greater wealth filters through society. Nothing of the sort happened then and nothing of the sort will happen now. What will happen is that the rich will get richer and the poor will get a kick in the teeth.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that the rich are smart. Despite their wealth, the rich are truly stupid. Not only are they smothering their own humanity, they're cutting a rod for their own back that one day will be seized by the world's oppressed and starving, and applied with deadly effect.

Golf and madness

I wonder how many of our MLAs play golf?  My reason for asking will emerge .

Myself and  wife and dearest daughter were up in Portstewart today. Beautiful sunshine, light wind,  the beach as usual broad and generous and clean. "What are those mountains?" someone asked me, pointing into the distance. "That" I said "is a foreign country. That is Donegal". We thought we could hear faint chants of "Come awwwn Donegaaaaawwwl!" carried on the breeze.

So then we decided it was time for a bit of something to eat, and as we were passing Portstewart Golf Club we thought we'd check if they allowed non-golfers into the restaurant. "No problem" a pleasant young woman told us, so in we go and up some stairs, the present Mrs C in front with daughter, myself bringing up the rear. It was when we were half-way up I heard the cry.

"Take your hat off, sir!"  I stared back down over the banister, and a chap wearing a Portstewart Golf Club top was sort of glaring up at me. "Not allowed to wear hats in the club house!" he called.
And like the craven lackey I am, I pulled my sun-protector hat off and followed the other two into the restaurant.

Ruined my meal, it did. All the time I was forking in the battered cod and mushy peas I was replaying the scene in my head and doing a bit of the old l'esprit de l'escalier  - trying out a number witty responses from myself to the hats-off command, most of them starting with a Wildean "Fuck you, sunshine!"  Mainly, of course, I was mad with myself for having instinctively followed the club-house chap's order.

So when we finished our meal I defiantly clapped my hat on my head and off we trooped, the two women in the lead once more. As I opened the exit door,  I came face to face with - you've guessed it  - a chap in a Portstewart Golf Club top. He was having a smoke so I thought I'd better check first.

"Are you the guy who told me to take off my hat earlier?"

He looked a bit nervous. "I am".

"Why?"

"Because it's against the rules. If you look you'll see a big notice 'No hats to be worn inside the club-house'. It's up there".

"But why?" I asked him again.

"It's the rules. Practically all of the golf clubs have it. No hats in the club-house. You don't play golf yourself, then?"

"No" I told him. "And I think I'm glad now I never did. I mean, there must be some reason for having that rule".

The guy shrugged his shoulders. "Haven't a clue. It's just the rule"

So we left on reasonably friendly terms, he assuring me that he had made his hats-off request "so you wouldn't be embarrassed when you went upstairs and somebody got onto you about wearing it", me assuring him that I wouldn't have been a bit embarrassed but I was still baffled.

I mean, wtf? WTF? Have my suspicions that all golfers are a bit weird found irrefutable evidence? Do they think their club-house is, like like,  holy ground or something?   Or are they so stupid that they have rules with no reasoning behind them, yet they enforce them because, well, them's the rules? Are they, as I have from time to time suspected,  an irrational collection of sweater-wearing eejits who dream up daft rituals to go with their birdies and eagles and plus-fours?

So I repeat: I wonder how many of our MLAs play golf?

Shameless about centenaries (and a book)