New Dawn for Ireland

By Dr. G. B.
Newe
With the setting-up of the Community Executive thfough which representatives of the two sections of the Northern Ireland community will share responsibility for government, and with the highly successful outcome of the marathon exercise represented by the Sunningdale Conference, there is every hope that a new dawn is about to break for Ireland — North and South.
The majority of honest, decent, thinking, war-weary people in Northern Ireland feel that. at last. they are about to be freed from the darkness which has encircled us for the past four years.
It is true that there are some 1.1 ho see, or pretend to see, in the establishment of Community Government — the creation of a community power-sharing instrument — and the steps to he taken to set up a Council of Ireland as an exercise in Machiavellianism which could scarcely be equalled by the Florentine statesman himself!
They fear, or pretend to fear, that all who have worked so hard, so conscientiously and with immense integrity to lay the foundations for new political structures have combined to throw overboard principles for which Northern Irishmen have suffered even to death to maintain.
They argue that an Executive composed of representatives of modern Unionism — as represented by Mr. Brian Faulkner and his colleagues and representatives of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Alliance Party must, inevitably, work against the best interests of the Northern Irish people.
Worse still, they argue, the proposal to establish a Council of Ireland is a first and major step towards a United Ireland and the breaking of the Union with Britain.
One hesitates to question the honesty of those who give voice and impetus to such fears.Surely, however, they must know that there is not, and cannot he, any question of a United Ireland, as they envisage it, unless and until the majority of the people of Northern Ireland desire it? And, further, whether or not they do desire it cannot be tested, by referendum. for at least ten years?
There are all sorts of other reasons why a United Ireland, as a political and physical possibility, is just "not on" now or even in the reasonably near future.
For one thing, Ireland, as a whole is not ready for unity. That is a fact which "United trelanders" either do not recognise or, if they do, have not the courage to face. While there is no doubt but that the Unionist (or Protestant) Party, %%lien, for 50 years it had unchallenged power of both government and patronage in Northern Ireland, made no effective effort to win genuine support from the Catholic community, the fault for our present
troubles cannot fairly be laid at its door alone.
I have never been one Who refused to believe that "nothing good could come out of Nazareth" .— that is, that nothing good could come out of Stormont. In many respects, Unionist government introduced or was responsible for much that was good in the way of legislation; and the development of our educations, health and welfare services, to say nothing of industrial development, were the envy of the Republic of Ireland.
As Catholics, we have always been quick to blame and slow to praise, and slow also to make positive contributions to the betterment of the total community. The Unionist Government — or Establishment — for the most part, never really encouraged us to participate at all sorts of levels short of actual government. It ignored us, and so our best brains and most of our young people tended. for the most part, to seek outlets for their abilities elsewhere but in their own community.
At the same time, while it had a Constitution which claimed jurisdiction over Northern Ireland. and while it burned immense quantities of incense at the Shrine of a United Ireland, the Republic of Ireland made no honest attempt to woo the Northern Ireland community.
If one regards the Republic as a suitor, seeking to win the hand of Northern Ireland,as a brideto-be, one finds a sad and sorry spectacle. Courtiers who are serious usually go out of their way to win the brides they desire and to whom they would happily give the warmth of their hearts and their hearths.
Our Republican "courtier" has been, by any measurement, a most clumsy wooer! He never spoke a kindly word to the "bride" (Northern Ireland). Indeed, he accused her of all sorts of shortcomings, even infidelities, and crowned his boorish manners by questioning her legitimacy!
Could one imagine any man engaged upon serious courtship ever hoping to win a bride by such behaviour? No wonder Miss Northern Ireland was scared off! No wonder she remains frightened and suspicious to this day!
If ever we come to have a United Ireland — and a United Ireland will make good sense one day — the "courtier" will have to change, radically, his manners, while the "bride" will have to show a readiness and a willingness for the "marriage" to take place. I tear that day is long distant.
Another fact must be faced. A United Ireland, when it com es, will he a very different Ireland from that which we know to-day. It must surely be patent to the most unacademic student of the body politic in Ireland to-day that a Dublinbased Parliament into which would come some 70 elected representatives of the six Northern Counties would quickly find its whole atmosphere very dramatically changed.
I suspect, too, that many of the present representatives of the three Ulster Counties (Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan) who now sit in the Dail would, on many issues, find themselves more in rapport with the representatives of the other six northern Counties than they might with the representatives of the remaining 23 Counties.
Thus, there could come into being an "Ulster" or "Northern Irish Party" stronger and more united by many ties than either of the existing two main parties — Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in the present Republic of Ireland.
It would be tempting to speculate on the impact of such a party upon the "Establishment" which now exists in the Republic! The men and women — from Ulster, led by an able politician of the Presbyterian communion, such as Mr. Brian Faulkner, would surely. bring cooling breezes into the atmosphere of Dail Eireann!
One final thought. The Northern Ireland I know, love and cherish is a Northern Ireland in which Presbyterianism is strong, and within that communion are men of outstanding ability and of the highest moral and political probity. They have a religious and political background of which they can be justly proud.
Why, then, I am prompted to ask, do so many of them appear to be fearful and unready to help shape the new NOrthern Ireland, the new Ireland, which must must be shaped?
It puzzles me, and worries me, that they appear to feel politically impotent, hesitating to help guide Northern Ireland into a new era, and, without sacrifice of basic principles, giving our new political instruments that dynamism which will enable us all to demonstrate, beyond yea or nay, that we can walk high into the future, unafraid of the "bogeymen'' which smallminded, but very vocal, "leaders" are seeking to create.
that we may have to face a very testing-time in the next few months remains a frightening possibility. 4 feel confident that the good sense of the Protestant community in Northern Ireland will, once again, be demonstrated. I am convinced that the dawn has come and that the sun will soon rise high in the heaven of our land.