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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
1 0 July 2017
T
HERE ARE several reasons why the efforts to
restore the power-sharing executive in the
North have proven unsuccessful so far, how-
ever optimistic James Brokenshire seemed to
be as Village was going to press. The timing is
inauspicious as Unionists prepare to don their bowler
hats for the annual Orange Order parades over the
coming weeks. The reluctance of the DUP to accept a
stand-alone Irish-language act is cited as the main
obstacle to reaching an agreement but there is much
more at stake.
Sinn Féin and the SDLP are both insistent that the Irish
language is officially recognised in legislation and the
newly appointed foreign affairs minister, Simon Cov-
eney, has weighed with the support of the Irish
government on the issue. This is an interesting shift from
the inertia displayed by his predecessors, including
Charlie Flanagan, on almost anything to do with the
North, although it is too early to tell whether it will
inspire a deeper engagement in the long term.
For Unionists, and DUP members, in particular, official
recognition of the language would imply an acceptance
that nationality and culture in the North embrace equally
both Irish and British identities, and for many that is a
step too far in what they see as the creeping green
smudge across their soil. Arlene Foster has even referred
to Sinn Féin seeking to assert “cultural supremacy”.
Equality, as demanded by Sinn Féin, for many within
Unionism means conceding more of their core beliefs
against LGBT and reproductive rights. The DUP contains
climate-change and evolution deniers among its politi
-
cal leadership.
It is not so many years ago that prominent DUP
member, Edwin Poots, who has been to the fore in recent
talks for his party, spoke of how the Orange men of Por-
tadown had a right to march down the nationalist
Garvaghy Road each July with or without the consent of
the community that lives there. On one occasion during
the stand-off in the late 1990s, he spoke on camera
about how the river that runs through the town was lit-
tered with so many bodies of the brave soldiers of
William of Orange that you could walk across it without
getting wet. He was serious.
But there are even greater fault-lines between the two
protagonists in the North, not least the recent agreement
by the DUP to support a Conservative Party-led govern-
ment in Britain. The Tories are committed to Brexit,
including the ending of the customs union which has
hugely negative implications for the people of the North,
not least those who work and do business south of the
border. The £1bn secured by the DUP in return for hold
-
ing up the Tory government will ease budgetary
pressures for any new executive but the party will con-
tinue to support public-service pay cuts as it did recently
when its MPs helped to bock efforts by the Labour Party
to introduce anti-austerity measures, at Westminster.
The Tories are also committed to ending British adher-
ence to the European Convention on Human Rights and
to scrapping the Human Rights Act which gives effect to
important provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.
While Theresa May has insisted in recent days that she
is committed to the Agreement, the DUP never signed up
to it and treats it like a piece of Nationalist dirt on its
Unionist shoe.
While it is not impossible to envisage Sinn Féin and
the DUP working together in an executive as the Brexit
negotiations unfold over the next two or three years, the
future of the North’s political institutions is clouded by
their fundamental difference on EU membership.
Last weekend, talks broke up acrimoniously over the
several issues that dominate discussions including the
standalone Acht na Gaeilge, equality issues and the long
promised and undelivered Bill of Rights. The British gov-
ernment has not dealt with demands by Sinn Féin and
the families of those injured and killed by state forces
during the troubles who are seeking some form of truth
and closure.
There were no formal talks between Gerry Adams and
the DUP leader over the first weekend in July as Arlene
Foster attended a wedding on Saturday, 1 July, (known
as the mini-twelfth and official start of the marching
season), and the DUP doesn’t do Sundays. The British
set an implicit deadline of Monday 3 July but extended it
after Secretary of State, James Brokenshire, told parlia
-
ment that day that he was extending the negotiations for
another few days at least. Some suspect that the DUP
may favour another round of assembly elections to
regain the ten seats it lost in March when Sinn Féin came
so close to matching its vote. Looking the other direction,
Sinn Féin sees Brexit as an opportunity to advance is
strategic vision of a United Ireland.
Many commentators in the Republic find it difficult to
understand why republicans should be so exercised by
Irish language rights, given how they have been so mar
-
ginalised by successive Dublin governments over
decades.
But it goes to the heart of the issue in the North where
so many people and their children have been educated
in Irish-speaking schools and where it is now a living
language across many communities.
It is not too long ago that many Unionists refused to
talk to Catholics or Nationalists in the workplace during
the Orange marching season. It is not long ago that the
pent-up aggression against the Taigs unleashed by the
sound of the drums in July forced so many Nationalists
to leave their homes and instilled a fear of marauding
loyalist gangs.
During July many DUP leaders will address Orange
-
men in fields across the North. The mood is not
conducive to reaching political agreement on a power-
sharing government, whether or not it is headed by
Arlene Foster, the woman whose supervision of the ash-
for-cash scandal brought it down in the first place.
Unionists over
Nationalists
By Frank Connolly
The mood this
marching season
is not conducive
to powersharing,
whether or not it is
headed by Arlene
Foster who brought
it down in the
first place
DUPlex
NEWS
The Northern Ireland duplex
