Out With the Old: Dreaming of a Different Ireland

by Bridget Meehan, Dessie Donnelly, Fintan Bradshaw

[This article is part of a series called Answering Ireland’s Call: Thoughts for a new republic (Freagairt ar Ghlaoch na hÉireann: Smaointe ar phoblacht nua). The series will publish articles discussing the reunification of Ireland but within the context of early 21st Century ills such as the climate crisis, capitalism and fascism. If you like what you read, please share the articles far and wide. If you have insights and ideas on the subject and want to make a contribution, the project team would love to hear from you via irelandscall@mailbox.org. This article was also published on ZNetwork.]

For a long time, the prospects for a unified Ireland were bleak; it was an idea consigned to the dustbin of history, remembered only by romantics, historians, diehard republicans and fringe elements of Irish society. Its status as an aspiration never managed to translate into everyday relevance. Thanks to Brexit, ironically, the subject has been pulled out of the bin, dusted off, and given the status of a genuinely credible prospect worthy of consideration. Every cloud has a silver lining, if life gives lemons make lemonade, caithfear an chros a leag an chinniúint ort a iompar, it’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good, and other such clichés come to mind.

Since Brexit, the issue of Irish unity has become, dare I say it, mainstreamed. All walks of political and civic life the length and breadth of Ireland have something to say about it, even, and maybe especially, the establishment. This presents Ireland with a rare opportunity, a chance to reset and do things over, and perhaps this time round, do them right.

When the country was partitioned in 1921, and became the two States of the North/Northern Ireland and the South/Republic of Ireland, we didn’t exactly get a fairytale ending where we lived happily ever. None of us needs a history lesson of the past 100 or so years, and if anybody does, this isn’t the occasion for it. Suffice to say, Ireland, North and South, is a conservative place that has accepted without a whimper, like so many other places across the globe, neoliberal policies (aka capitalism on speed) that have normalised poverty and economic inequality, eroded the safety net of protective civic and public policies, and brought humans and multiple other species to the brink of extinction. And all that in addition to our own personal baggage of cultural identity, church domination, sectarianism, the trauma of colonialism, lack of self-determination, and British-induced tribal differences.

If we are going to ignite a debate about Irish unity, which is essentially a debate about constitutional change across the island, the obvious starting point might be to lay these problems on the table and see how we, all of us, together, might create a sustainable and just united Ireland. And by ‘we’ I mean every shade and denomination of person who lives on this island.

Thing is, that’s not exactly what’s happening right now with the unity debate. While constitutional change is on the horizon, the process is in danger of being co-opted by the same vested interests who created, and continue to benefit from, the growing inequalities that exist in both jurisdictions on this island, with an assumption that neoliberalism is fine and that there is no better alternative. The process is also in danger of sinking into the mire of old arguments and subject matter that feel less relevant today in the face of existential challenges like climate catastrophe, another world war, and crippling wealth extraction. Little of what is in the unity debate so far inspires much confidence that a renewed Ireland would be a more equitable, democratic, participatory or environmentally sustainable place than the two divided States that exist now.

A renewed Ireland will only be born of the struggles our communities are engaged in today: one which stands for neutrality and non-alignment in global affairs and advances internationalism; prioritises the environment; puts people and planet at the centre of the economy; strives for a fair and just democracy; advocates for just class, race and gender relations; develops sustainable public services; protects minorities; welcomes immigrants and asylum seekers; actively promotes the revival of the Irish language and embraces other languages, and; distributes wealth justly.

Like many others, and maybe you too, we believe that constitutional change must result in more than an amalgam of two dysfunctional and deeply unequal States. The prospect of a renewed constitution offers an opportunity to redraw fundamental rules which govern and regulate Irish society and Ireland’s contribution to the global family. This is an unprecedented moment in our collective history. To prepare for such change, thoughtful policy positions and ambitious vision and strategy capable of addressing core problems in our democracies are a necessity. Leaving this task to governments, political parties, corporations, and elites amounts to surrendering the initiative to the current establishment.

And that’s why we’ve created this project: to provide a platform for grassroots voices who don’t want the same-old-same-old but who want to bring different ideas into the discourse.

The first step for this project, which we’re calling Answering Ireland’s Call: Thoughts for a new republic (Freagairt ar Ghlaoch na hÉireann: Smaointe ar phoblacht nua) is to publish a series of topical articles on the subjects that are relevant to us, today, in the early 21st Century. What we do after that will be up to the people who contribute and get involved.

So, we must get involved, we must have our voices heard, we must make the unity debate ours, we must at least try to do something, because if we stand back and allow it to continue as it has been doing, if we do nothing to drive the debate towards sustainability and equality, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves..

If you like the idea behind this project, Answering Ireland’s Call: Thoughts for a new republic (Freagairt ar Ghlaoch na hÉireann: Smaointe ar phoblacht nua) and if you like what we publish, then please share this and the other articles in the series far and wide. If you happen to have insights and ideas and you want to make a contribution, then we’d love to hear from you and ask that you get in touch via irelandscall@mailbox.org.