Christopher Ewart-Biggs was a British ambassador to Ireland who was killed by the Provisional IRA in 1976. His widow endowed a prize in his name which would promote peace and understanding.
This year’s Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize has been won just this month by Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride for their joint publication ‘For and Against a United Ireland’ – and absolutely deservedly so.
The O’Toole-McBride endeavour is a fair, well-constructed and hugely informative compendium shining a light on both sides of the argument. Dubliner Fintan and Belfastman Sam take it in turns to argue both for and against, and thus, in the Socratic fashion, a full picture emerges.
And what’s the full answer – yes or no? It could turn out to be ‘maybe’.
Suspect
O’Toole articulates something we all suspect: in the Republic the majority sincerely aspires to a united Ireland – but seems unwilling to do much to prepare for it, or make any notable accommodations in their own lives. It’s like St Augustine’s prayer: “Oh Lord, make me pure – but not yet!”
Meshing North and South together, as the details explain, is a big undertaking: from flags and emblems, to health and education, from taxation and social welfare to language signage and miles versus kilometres, it’s a Herculean task.
McBride and O’Toole do a comprehensive job in looking at the facts, figures and attitudes, they have a modern secularist mindset which leads to something of a lacuna around religion”
That doesn’t mean it can’t, or shouldn’t, be done, and if the people vote for it, it will be done. (Or should we say ‘the peoples’?)
But if it is to be done, it must be prepared more thoroughly, and this award-winning book, published by the Royal Irish Academy, is an excellent prepping primer. (It’s priced at €20, but a cheaper edition would be a public service.)
Yet, although McBride and O’Toole do a comprehensive job in looking at the facts, figures and attitudes, they have a modern secularist mindset which leads to something of a lacuna around religion. Yes, they analyse religion in terms of identity, schools and traditions – O’Toole has his customary little knock at the “obscurantist Catholic state” – but they don’t have much sense of the genuine presence of faith among Irish people north and south.
Exploration
And that’s a very interesting area of exploration too. In the event of a united Ireland, would the country become more religious, or less so?
I would suggest that a united Ireland would cohere into a strong faith culture. And here’s a point for Fintan and Sam: the Christian Irish churches have long been doing the necessary bridge-building with their ecumenical links and peaceful acts of co-operation. The Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland are, anyway, already all-Ireland organisations, paving the way on the administrative side.
The country may not have done its United Ireland prep – but possibly the people of faith have!
***
Gerry Adams kissed me
Gerry Adams once kissed me. It happened a few years ago at a book launch hosted by the amiable Kerry former TD, Jimmy Deenihan.
I have no objection to being kissed socially, and I normally take such embraces cordially. Only I wasn’t entirely sure why the póg occurred. Was it because I had reviewed Gerry Adams’ very bland autobiography Before the Dawn (for the Times Literary Supplement)? Was it a matter of mistaken identity – maybe he took me for someone else? Or was it because we had another Mary in common friendship, the late journalist Mary Holland, who had spoken to me about how much she esteemed Mr Adams’s political skills and intelligence?
Search me. But once you’ve been kissed by a chap, you invariably take an interest in his further career, and I note that once again, he’s been a “lucky general”, as Napoleon would put it, emerging from a British court of law unscathed by the allegation that he was a commanding member of the IRA at its most brutally active.
But no man’s life can be assessed until he is dead, for it is only in retrospect that a judgement can be made (and moreover, when the laws of libel no longer apply). As a Catholic, Gerry will know that a Higher Judgement will also be forthcoming in the final weighing of the scales, so, for the moment, we’ll just leave it at that.
***
Athbheochan na teanga
Astonishingly, it’s revealed that while most Irish people support the Irish language, only 10% speak it “very well”. Again, an aspiration rather than a reality!
Don’t laugh, but I’m currently perusing a text just about at my level: “Dic agus a chat”, being the story of Dick Whittington and his cat, retold by Máiréad Ní Ghráda in Ladybird children’s books. It’s a model teaching tool because it depends on constant repetition: “Bhí buachaill ann fadó. Dic an t-ainam a bhí air. Bhí a athair agus a mháthair marbh.” All so simple and accessible. “’Cá bhuil an baile mór?’ a deir Dic. ‘Is fada fada as seo é.’” Child’s play!
Gerry Adams TD. Photo: Sinn Féin
And what about the role of faith in a United Ireland?
Christopher Ewart-Biggs was a British ambassador to Ireland who was killed by the Provisional IRA in 1976. His widow endowed a prize in his name which would promote peace and understanding.
This year’s Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize has been won just this month by Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride for their joint publication ‘For and Against a United Ireland’ – and absolutely deservedly so.
The O’Toole-McBride endeavour is a fair, well-constructed and hugely informative compendium shining a light on both sides of the argument. Dubliner Fintan and Belfastman Sam take it in turns to argue both for and against, and thus, in the Socratic fashion, a full picture emerges.
And what’s the full answer – yes or no? It could turn out to be ‘maybe’.
Suspect
O’Toole articulates something we all suspect: in the Republic the majority sincerely aspires to a united Ireland – but seems unwilling to do much to prepare for it, or make any notable accommodations in their own lives. It’s like St Augustine’s prayer: “Oh Lord, make me pure – but not yet!”
Meshing North and South together, as the details explain, is a big undertaking: from flags and emblems, to health and education, from taxation and social welfare to language signage and miles versus kilometres, it’s a Herculean task.
That doesn’t mean it can’t, or shouldn’t, be done, and if the people vote for it, it will be done. (Or should we say ‘the peoples’?)
But if it is to be done, it must be prepared more thoroughly, and this award-winning book, published by the Royal Irish Academy, is an excellent prepping primer. (It’s priced at €20, but a cheaper edition would be a public service.)
Yet, although McBride and O’Toole do a comprehensive job in looking at the facts, figures and attitudes, they have a modern secularist mindset which leads to something of a lacuna around religion. Yes, they analyse religion in terms of identity, schools and traditions – O’Toole has his customary little knock at the “obscurantist Catholic state” – but they don’t have much sense of the genuine presence of faith among Irish people north and south.
Exploration
And that’s a very interesting area of exploration too. In the event of a united Ireland, would the country become more religious, or less so?
I would suggest that a united Ireland would cohere into a strong faith culture. And here’s a point for Fintan and Sam: the Christian Irish churches have long been doing the necessary bridge-building with their ecumenical links and peaceful acts of co-operation. The Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland are, anyway, already all-Ireland organisations, paving the way on the administrative side.
The country may not have done its United Ireland prep – but possibly the people of faith have!
***
Gerry Adams kissed me
Gerry Adams once kissed me. It happened a few years ago at a book launch hosted by the amiable Kerry former TD, Jimmy Deenihan.
I have no objection to being kissed socially, and I normally take such embraces cordially. Only I wasn’t entirely sure why the póg occurred. Was it because I had reviewed Gerry Adams’ very bland autobiography Before the Dawn (for the Times Literary Supplement)? Was it a matter of mistaken identity – maybe he took me for someone else? Or was it because we had another Mary in common friendship, the late journalist Mary Holland, who had spoken to me about how much she esteemed Mr Adams’s political skills and intelligence?
Search me. But once you’ve been kissed by a chap, you invariably take an interest in his further career, and I note that once again, he’s been a “lucky general”, as Napoleon would put it, emerging from a British court of law unscathed by the allegation that he was a commanding member of the IRA at its most brutally active.
But no man’s life can be assessed until he is dead, for it is only in retrospect that a judgement can be made (and moreover, when the laws of libel no longer apply). As a Catholic, Gerry will know that a Higher Judgement will also be forthcoming in the final weighing of the scales, so, for the moment, we’ll just leave it at that.
***
Athbheochan na teanga
Astonishingly, it’s revealed that while most Irish people support the Irish language, only 10% speak it “very well”. Again, an aspiration rather than a reality!
Don’t laugh, but I’m currently perusing a text just about at my level: “Dic agus a chat”, being the story of Dick Whittington and his cat, retold by Máiréad Ní Ghráda in Ladybird children’s books. It’s a model teaching tool because it depends on constant repetition: “Bhí buachaill ann fadó. Dic an t-ainam a bhí air. Bhí a athair agus a mháthair marbh.” All so simple and accessible. “’Cá bhuil an baile mór?’ a deir Dic. ‘Is fada fada as seo é.’” Child’s play!
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