IRISH LIVES DON'T COUNT FOR THE CENSORED IGNORANT

For genuine, objective, researchers of the Irish Holocaust,who are not British agents, there is academic disagreement, about the precise figures, with regard to the numbers of Irish murdered. The figures vary between 5.2 million at the lower end of the scale, to 6.2 million at the higher end, which I will not personally dispute, considering the time frame. However after 800 years of British Occupation, I can assure the reader that the total figure, is well in excess of 6, probably, some where in the region of of seven million in total.

Whatever way you look at it, this war crime, against humanity, is the modern equivalent of nuking one of the major cities of the world. So in this context, it wouldn't be a good idea, to leave nukes hanging around near the Irish, no more than it is a good idea to leave them around the Jews. Now, I've been listening to Irish jokes, since I was knee high, and indeed Irish people have as good a sense of humour as anyone, but nuking a major world city, such as London, is a pretty sick joke and is no more funny than is the Irish Holocaust.

A famous Irish joke, goes along the lines of the following, that the reason God invented Alcohol, was to prevent the Irish taking over the world. Now the last time I checked, an Irish American by the name of Dempsey, which is my mother's side of the family, was General of the U.S Army. Dempseys are pretty wild people, but if you put drink in them, they become mad. Now I know Martin does a bit of partying and with his finger on the button on the one hand, and a whisky in the other, I'd advise London to wind their necks in, especially if they screen comedies about the Irish Holocaust or have sitcoms in the States, about an Irish American alcoholic.

Germany had to make a 100 billion compensation to the Jews, for their Holocaust. I calculate, bearing in mind the time factor, and with inflation, the irish Holocaust was even bigger, that Britain owes Ireland a modest 200 billion minimum, in reparations for the Irish holocaust. Now if any of you readers, have the ear of Gerry Adams, before he becomes Taoiseach, could you have a wee word with him. Tell him Irish Blog suggested, that as soon as he takes office, he immediately, pick up the phone to Cameron, and tell him in no uncertain terms, to cough up and get his lot out of Ireland now, as Ireland will not repay anymore of it's EU debt until he complies, failing which, his Goverment will start a campaign worldwide,including the US, along the lines, that Israel has already sucessfully done. 

Sadly, knowing the sinners, with their future Minister for Finance, putting on lot of weight recently, they would probably ask for 300 billion and settle for 50 billion, just to stay quiet about it, along the lines of the Stormont House Agreement, where Irish water in the north, is already privatized by them. If it was up to me, I would tell them to cancel the fraudulent bankster, bailout debt and they leave Ireland immediately in peace, becuase there's no luck in blood money. Now if you don't hear from Irish Blog again, in the near future, probably some camouflaged Brit agent, has caused my demise. So please, educate, organize and agitate. You can please start, by sharing this blog, if you agree, because like these facts below, I am semi-censored by British agents and despite the events, being 150 years later, it is still dangerous to write about these facts. So carry the message and try to share these facts, which you can check below, far and wide, especially to the 80 million Irish diaspora worldwide.

1. 
   

Toll of the Irish Holocaust




(Click Map Above)




Page List: Introduction
Britain's Cover Up
The Food Removal
Voices in the Wilderness
Official British Intent
Toll of Holocaust
Complicity
What We Must Do
Lisnabinnia Memorial
Liverpool, Great Hunger
Sister Jean Marie


Toll of Irish Holocaust. The 1841 census of Ireland revealed a population of 10,897,449. This figure includes the correction factor established by that year's official partial recount. When, between 1779 and 1841, the U.S. population increased by 640 percent, and England's is estimated to have increased, despite massive emigration to its colonies, by 100 percent, it is generally accepted that Ireland's population increase was 172% 10. The average annual component of this 172% increase is x in the formula (1+ x)62 = 1 + 172%; thus 0.0163, or 1.63%. Accepting that this 1.63% rate of annual population increase continued until mid-1846 (one human gestation after the late-1845 beginning of removal of Ireland's food), the 1846 population was 11,815,011.
Assuming that rate continued, the population in 1851, absent the starvation, would have been approximately 12,809,841. However; the 1851 census recorded a population of 6,552,385; thus there was a "disappearance" of 6,257,456. This population-loss figure of 6,257,456 is scarcely susceptible to significant challenge, being derived directly from the British government's own censuses for Ireland. It is reasonable to assume that the rigor established in the recount of 1841 became the standard for the 1851 census; so that any residual undercount would be systemic, affecting 1841 and 1851 proportionately (and, if known, would increase the murder total). These 6,257,456 include roughly 1,000,000 who successfully fled into exile and another 100,000 unborn between 1846 and 1851 due to malnutrition-induced infertility. Of the 100,000 who fled to Canada in 1847, only 60,000 were still alive one month after landing.11 Among the 40,000 dead was Henry Ford's father's mother who died en route from Cork or in quarantine on Quebec's Grosse Ile.
Thus; though from 1845 through 1850, 6,257,456 "disappeared," the number murdered is approximately 1.1 million fewer; i.e., 5.16 millions. Consequently; if Britain's census figures for Ireland are correct the British government murdered approximately 5.16 million Irish men, women and children; making it the Irish Holocaust. This number, 5.16 million, exceeds the high end of the range (4.2 to 5.1 million) of serious estimates of the number of Jews murdered by Nazis. The least reliable component of the foregoing arithmetic is the number assumed to have successfully fled. If the fleers who survived prove to number, say, 900,000 instead of 1,000,000, the murder count will have to be corrected from 5.16 to 5.26 millions. This amount of adjustment, up or down, of the 5.16 millions murdered is determinable by sensitive review of the immigration records of the U.S., Canada, Argentina, and Australia; and of government records on the Irish who fled to Britain at the time. We invite bona fide documentation of the foregoing; whether in confirmation or rebuttal. Economists and historians are disqualified if their published work on the events of 1845-1850 covers up the British army's central role therein. Such individuals lack the standing to participate in this truth-quest.

To our knowledge nobody else has ever published the above arithmetic or named the food removal regiments and battleships.Evidence that other truth-telling accounts exist would be greatly appreciated. Irish academia shuns and slurs Tom Gallagher's Paddy's Lament and Englishwoman Cecil Woodham-Smith's The Great Hunger for mentioning the Food Removal. Woodham-Smith fudged, but not enough to satisfy the cover-up cabal. For example; she reported that the 1841 partial recount established a correction factor of one-third for the 1841 census figure; but she used the uncorrected figure to calculate! By this and other fudges she arrived at a population-loss of only 2.5 million. She allocated only half a page to the core facts of the Genocide; the food removal data, while using some two hundred pages to describe British government "relief measures" as if they were something other than cosmetic exercises; a cover-up. But just as Telefis Eireann out-Britished Yorkshire TV by refusing to co-premiere the latter's 1993 exposé of the 5/17/74 British bombings of Dublin/Monaghan streets that murdered 33 and maimed 253; and as the Irish police menace the survivors of that bombing instead of arresting the known British perpetrators; so do Irish historians out-British Woodham-Smith by ostracizing her for exposing the Food Removal. They out-do themselves in describing the "benefit" of the Irish Holocaust; how Britain reduced poverty in Ireland ( by murdering those it had impoverished! They promote the notion that only the blighted potato crop belonged to the Irish while Ireland's abundant livestock, grains, etc., all "belonged" to mostly absentee English landlords. By that insane standard all of the property and production of Europe and Asia, excepting starvation rations for workers, would belong to W.W.II GIs and their heirs (or to the Axis had it won).

Irish are not guilty. Though many Holocaust Irish, like many, say, Auschwitz Jews, took deadly advantage of their own weakest, neither the Irish nor Jewish communities had hand or part in the conceiving and planning of the genocides from London and Berlin; respectively. But, the German government repented and paid $100 billion (dollars) reparations to Jews while the British government and its Dublin surrogates still use terror and slander against those who commemorate the Irish Holocaust. It is still dangerous - after 150 years - to reveal the truth of it. ...

MERRY XM'ASS BLUESHIRT TRAITORS

I pay the equivalent of 15 Euros annually, for a constant supply of clean water in what is termed a developung country. My home has three showers and we regularly water the garden. If you equate it with the cost of living index of Ireland, it would be somewhere around 20 euros annuallly.Unlike Ireland it does not rain here for 4 months of the year and we also have an excellent sewage system. If the Government here, attempted to do what the Irish Goverment are currently doing, despite an EU exemption for water meters in Ireland, I can unequivocally state, there would definetly be an immediate revolution.

The people would simply congregate around all Government administration buildings, stay, as they have done regularly and shut them down. End of story until there is a clear undertaking of a change of Government. What the last two Irish Governments have done in Ireland, is simply economic treachery, which is punishable by execution in many countries in this region. A decent water supply, along with sanitation, is a very simple civic service, with low maintainence if managed intelligently. I know, because I helped with water installation in my own village. Anyone who tells you otherwise is fooling you, it's not rocket science.

People tell me, I should return and live in Ireland, if I care so much to do a daily Irish blog. The simple truth is, that I find it uninhabitable, and I would not tolerate such utter bollix in daily life. In both parts of the island, it simply is a traitorous island, that cannot handle the truth. Pseudo republicans are the worst offenders. Both Jim Larkin and James Connolly were forced to leave and we know what happened to both,when they returned. I have no doubt that the same fate or internment face me if I return. So this is the beat I can do. people need to identify truthful, non careerist leaders and stick together at all times, putting principles before personalitues. Revisionists or reformists will not fix Ireland. Revolution is necessary, I can only hope it will be without bloodshed but I know frome our history and my own experience, it will require defence.

 Nollaig Shona Chairde Irish Blog!

Season of Goodwill… West Delivers Sanctions, Suffering and Conflict
By Finian Cunningham

December 21, 2014 "ICH" - "SCF" -  It’s the Season of Goodwill – and Western governments are showering us with a medley of their «gifts». Sanctions, austerity, lethal military aid and red-hot coals of conflict.

Meanwhile, the contrast of Russian humanitarian aid to Ukraine could not be greater or more telling. This week another convoy of trucks from Russia – at least the tenth so far in recent months – is due to arrive in eastern Ukraine, bearing food, clothing, heating and toys for the war-torn children of Luhansk and Donetsk. 

Only in the cynical, mean-spirited West would such a juxtaposition of very different Russian conduct be misconstrued. 

As the world prepares to celebrate Christmas – an occasion of peace, joy and salvation for humanity – Washington and its allies in Canada and the European Union see fit to unleash more sanctions on Russia, fuel further misery and suffering in Ukraine, and perhaps most perniciously, to stoke conditions for larger war.

Hard-hearted Western rulers just don’t seem to have a redeeming bone in their bodies or cell in their brains. At least in Charles Dickens’ classic novel ‘A Christmas Carol’, a story of redemption and hope, his horrible miserable character Ebenezer Scrooge was able to recognise the meanness of his ways and, in the end, repent. No such change for Western governments, it seems, who press on in their destructive, blind arrogance.

As US President Barack Obama departed from the White House last Friday for Christmas holidays with his family in sunny Hawaii, he bequeathed his signature to a Congress «present» for the Kiev regime. Among the «goodies» are millions of dollars worth of lethal military aid for the regime that seized power in an illegal coup in February this year. That’s not an pejorative opinion about this regime: it is simply an objective fact. Of course, the Western governments and their media would disagree because they are inebriated on their own cocktails of propaganda. 

One wonders if Obama will remember when he is pulling crackers with his daughters around the Christmas dining table that the children of Ukraine will be cringing in fear from the crackle and thud of weapons that his government is funnelling into that country.

Obama also signed off on new sanctions to hit the people of Crimea, for their audacity to vote in a referendum in March to secede from the neo-Nazi regime that his CIA shunted into power. The executive order from the White House prohibits the export and import of goods, technology, services and investment because of, as Obama put it, Russia’s «annexation and occupation of Crimea».

Similar punitive measures were also forthcoming in the same week from the European Union and the Canadian government of Stephen Harper.

These latest Western moves come on top of previous rounds of economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed on Russia. This week – on the eve of the Christmas holidays – the Russian rouble hit new lows, partly as a result of Western sanctions, thus bringing uncertainty and anxiety to many Russian citizens. 

Moscow deplored the new round of sanctions as a reckless provocation, and in particular the approval by Washington to open the floodgate for weapons supply into Ukraine.  The country has already seen nearly 5,000 deaths over the past eight months since the Western-backed Kiev regime launched a military offensive on the eastern Donbas regions against the Russian-speaking civilian population, simply because the latter, much like their compatriots in Crimea, refuse to recognise the CIA-backed coup that ousted the elected government of Viktor Yanukovych. 

Under the subsequent «leadership» of oligarch Petro Poroshenko and CIA protégé Arseniy Yatsenyuk, along with a cabinet of foreign impostors, the regime has imposed an economic blockade on the people of Luhansk and Donetsk. Unable to win the military war against the people’s self-defence militia, the Kiev Reich has now resorted to a tactic of attrition and collective punishment. That is, more crimes against humanity. 

Western sanctions this week on Russia and promises of further military support will only embolden the already illegal regime in Kiev and its criminal conduct against the civilians of eastern Ukraine. Spare a thought for the children of Donbas who have to huddle around stoves in the midst of electricity black-outs and the constant fear of the Kiev military breaking the tentative ceasefire, as it has routinely flouted over the past two months.   

However, the benevolence of the Brussels plutocrats to their rogue progeny in Kiev is being strained. This week the unelected president of the European Council Jean-Claude Juncker warned that further financial aid is no longer possible. Already the Brussels elite has forked out some €1,800 million to the coup-regime. Petulant demands for «more money» from the Brussels cash cow by Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk are becoming unbearable.  

The largesse showered on this criminal regime (a UN human rights report last week cited systematic violations against civilians, including indiscriminate shelling of residential areas) is at the expense of EU citizens who are facing relentless austerity, unemployment, homelessness and welfare cuts. How is that for brazen cold blood among the Brussels bureaucrats? Unelected mandarins shovel public money to a neo-Nazi regime outside of the EU that is killing their own people and yet EU citizens are being denied basic human needs from austerity cutbacks – and at Christmas too! 

But, as noted, the EU plutocrats seem to be realising that the entity Washington and Brussels have sired in Kiev is a runaway train wreck, an insatiable Frankenstein monster.  

At the latest EU summit at the end of this week, Kiev’s tycoon-president Poroshenko was not invited to attend – a sharp change in tack from the customary indulgence afforded by Brussels.  

Also, when the arrogant Yatsenyuk was asked earlier this week when Kiev expected a further tranche of €200 million from the EU public purse, he snapped: «Let me put in a nutshell: yesterday!» To which European Commissioner Yohannes Hahn retorted that there would be no more money from EU taxpayers «until Kiev implemented certain reforms». 

Undeterred in his whining, Yatensyuk later told media: «We will do everything that was promised... but to overcome this period Ukraine needs to get some kind of cushion and this cushion is a new package of financial aid. It is difficult for us to fight with a nuclear state [Russia] which is armed to the teeth.» It was the usual shrill excuse-making, blaming everyone else, and expecting something for nothing. 

And what reforms does the EU want from Kiev? More neo-liberal economic reforms, privatisation, austerity, and general capitalist raping of the country. Nowhere in the EU-mandated reforms are an end to war, violations and crimes against humanity.  

A Christmas Carol? The EU is not only Scrooge unrepentant. It is also the biggest Stooge for American war-making. 

Happy Christmas everyone.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS OF TREACEHERY & CORRUPTION

Economic Treachery is a Capital offence in many modern countries throughout the world , for a very good reason. Clearly both the present Government and the last one, are guilty of this most serious of crimes, which places foreign, selfish and corrupt interests ahead of one's own nation. Both governments, should as an example and precedent to the rest of the nation, be beheaded as happened in the First Republic of France, which was the model for any future Irish Republic. Below is an article from a former Member of the European Parliament which elaborates the details.

Last week the Minister for he Environment Alan Kelly said that Ireland did not have an exemption from domestic water metering and charging as defined in the EU Water Services Directive.

This was simply untrue, and the EU have confirmed this.

Alan Kelly was trying to cover up the fact that he alone is about to give away the people’s exemption. Why? Because he is doing what he is told by the Troika banks.

The exemption cannot be taken away, not by the EU, and definitely NOT by the Troika, who are not party to the directive; it can only be given away.

This is yet another example of our politicians’ spinning and twisting the truth – you may say lying.

Where do their loyalties truly lie? This highlights once again the duplicity of government while they work for outside entities to the detriment of the people.

Alan Kelly must submit a report on 1st January wherein he is supposed to renew the exemption for another 7 years. Alan is intending to NOT renew it. We must make it known that this is not our wish and he has no authority to do this. Please let it be known to all representatives that this exemption must be renewed.

It is the will of the people. It is pertinent to say at this point that if we had a direct democracy system of government in Ireland this situation would not even be happening, because the TDs would know the people would call a referendum on the issue and overturn it, and hence with this knowledge government would not even try to do this.

The following is an update on the situation from former MEP Kathy Sinnott , who is a former member of the European Parliament Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. This letter outlines the reality behind the spin; and gives examples of why the privatised model they are looking to create does not and cannot yield the results the government are promising.

“The Irish Exemption”

Update on Current Situation

by Kathy Sinnott

I recently tried to alert people to the existence of the “Irish Exemption”, Ireland’s unique exemption from domestic water charging based on Article 9.4 of the EU Water Framework Directive. The exemption is based on the Irish Department of the Environment’s commitment, strategy and budget to rectify the inadequacies in our water management without metering. This commitment is recorded in the 2008 Irish River Basin Management Plan. Former Minister for Environment John Gormley was able to confirm in 2008 that Ireland had obtained and was availing of the exemption from household water charges. I was assured at the time by the European Commission that the EU couldn’t not take the exemption from us but Ireland could cancel it. This week Minister for Environment Alan Kelly publicly denied we currently had an exemption from domestic water charging. He stated “We do not have a derogation because we now have committed to the model that we have.” Fortunately he is wrong. In trying to confirm the current situation, I contacted Brussels.

The good news is that the Water Framework Directive Article 9.4 exemption is still in place. The challenging news is that it is under imminent threat of cancellation by the Minister for the Environment, Alan Kelly himself! In accordance with Article 9.4 of the Water Framework Directive our exemption is embedded in the 2008 River Basin Management Plan. Any renewal or cancellation of the exemption is done in the next 7 year RBMP. And it is the Minister for the Environment who assembles and submits this plan. This 2015 River Basin Management Plan is due on be handed into Brussels by New Years Day. Both the Irish government and the European Commission are expecting that Minister Kelly will not renew the exemption and will instead include domestic water charging as part of Ireland’s strategy. Why are they so sure that the plan as yet incomplete and unpublished will include water charging? Because in 2010 the Troika told us to privatize and charge for water and both the Irish government and the EU Commission assume that we will meekly obey, that is we will state in the River Basin report that the only way we can protect our rivers is by charging for domestic water use! But is this true? If the money spent on metering is spent on pipe work the leaks will be repaired. And if the money already collected in taxes for water infrastructure was spent on upgrading treatment plants we would see a significant improvement to the water infrastructure to domestic homes and meet our part of the next 7 year targets on river basin management.

Because the EU water legislation is based on the “polluter pays principle”, the most obvious strategy for financing clean water is to identify the real polluters of water in Ireland and make them pay. In the 2008 plan, the sources of pollution are listed. They included agriculture and rural septic tanks. These sources have been tackled at great expense to rural dwellers and significant improvement has been made and progress is ongoing.Other sources like quarrying, mining including old tailings ponds, leaking landfills, forestry, industry are still major sources of pollution. If it is the polluter who is supposed to pay then it should be these for profit industries which should be paying for the purification of the water they polluter and for preventative measures not the ordinary householder who is already paying. To give an example. We are told we need domestic water charging to deal with cryptosporidium in our water supply. But again is this true? Uplands all over the country were planted in coniferous forests. Unlike deciduous forests natural to Ireland, these plantations of Sitka spruce trees acidify the soil and do not break down animal waste effectively. After a few decades these forests are “clear felled” with heavy machinery that rips up the forests leaving the soils exposed. Heavy rains wash the animal waste and acid soil down hill to the river below. The resulting pollution provides ideal condition for cryptosporidium and other contaminants. Why would the people in these areas who are innocent of causing the problem and who are already bearing the expense of bottled and boiled water asked to foot the bill for cleaning up water pollution they did not cause. The Department of the Environment should instead go to the real polluters,and recover the cost of cleaning up polluted water, or better preventing the pollution in the first place. Privatization will not solve our water infrastructure problems because private companies are geared to profit. It will make sense to invest in 500 meters of new piping in a city because it will serve hundreds of paying houses. But it will cut into profits to replace 500 meters of leaking pipes in which serves only 5 homes. A privatized water system will still be a leaky water system! Alan Kelly can save the Irish Exemption by making the commitment in the River Basin Management Plan that actual water polluters will pay, that funds collected for water infrastructure in existing taxes will be used to upgrade our systems and by creating incentives for improvements to domestic water use like rain water collection system. There is still time to save the Irish Exemption…and the Irish people are in the mood to defend it because once the exemption is gone it is gone for good. We have one month to save it.

God bless

Kathy Sinnott

kathysinnott@gmail.com

Former Member of the European Parliament

Former Member of the European Parliament Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

THE RISING IRISH PEOPLE OF MAFIANOMICS

Ireland Ripe for Revolution?

Recent events have shown, that Europe is still confronted with the same problems, since the financial crisis of 2008, deepening a class divide, which has led to widening political instability all over, that has now belatedly provoked the Irish people. The dialectic around the activity surrounding the right2water crisis, has politicized the Irish people to the extent, that they not alone distrust the old power structures of church and state but they are also, no longer hostage to the corporate media. They have found their own voice and dialectic in the course of the protests, that is evolving towards the dialectics of materialism, while at the same time bonding with their common class identity. It is too late to turn the clock back now, even if the water meter issue itself were resolved. Below is an older article from Michael Werbowski, that gives a European context to what is currently happening in Ireland

 

Michael Werbowski

Throughout the EU, countries such as Italy, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Spain and the latest state faced with a banking crisis or “financial meltdown”,that is Cyprus are all teetering on the edge of an economic abyss. What ails these euro zone states? It’s the draconian politics of austerity. These low or no growth remedies imposed by non-elected officials have led to the fall of governments in the so called EU “core countries” including now Italy. New actors have emerged to take on the effete elite. The Beppe Grillo political phenomenon has sent a deafeningly loud message to the establishment.

Massively, austerity with its adjunct deep social cuts, wage squeezes and endless “structural reforms”, has been rejected at the polling booth. The satirist cum politician, has not only provided some much needed comic relief to a deeply discontented populace, but he has also given vent to anger, or deep seated frustration with the out-going technocratic government of Mario Monte. In the wake of the national elections, Italy seems destined to return back to an era of short lived coalition and chronic instability which characterized the political life of the country in the post-world war years. But much more worrisome for the Brussels “commissars” is what’s happening in the Balkans. Over there we might be seeing the beginnings of a really “civil society” led, yet not so peaceful revolution.

Balkans Spring?

Do events in Bulgaria mirror those of the Arab spring? Has the violence in North Africa crossed the Mediterranean via Greece to Bulgaria? Yes it has, indeed. The confrontations between police and protestors in places like Varna and Sophia (sparked by rising energy costs, stagnant wages etc.) have rocked the region to the same extend as those in Egypt or Tunisia. And like in North Africa, the government in Sophia has fallen fast in the wake of popular unrest.

The death this week of Plamen Goranov due to self-immolation in Bulgaria is not unlike the protests actions of Mohamed Bonazizi, the Tunisian street vendor whose desperate act triggered massive demonstrations in his country, which later spread throughout the Maghreb. Whatever similarities there might be between these dramatic events in history, the suicidal yet symbolic act of one man in Varna, has ignite done more powder keg in another highly volatile part of the world which is the Balkans; an area which as we all know, was a flashpoint ofa conflict which sparked the outbreak of the First World War and also was the venue of the ex-Yugoslavia war. Both wars altered the geopolitical face of Europe forever. And will likely do so again soon if the instability there continues.

Oxymoron: EU peace prize in times of great social, economic and political unrest on the continent

Where this growing popular unrest is leading is hard to tell. But one thing seems sure: the EU is faced with widening instability not only in core states,but alsoin those on its periphery. That is the instability has spread beyond the Eurozone to the non-Eurozone states as well; or to Bulgaria, one of the newest member states but also one of its poorest. There is an explosive cocktail of dire poverty, widespread corruption and criminality known as “mafianomics” there, which characterizes boththe country and the region. This is not helpful. But then neither are the policies of the troika: EU, IMF and European Central Bank. These policies devised in Brussels, Washington and Frankfurt are destabilizing not only Mediterranean anymore, but Europe and the Balkans as well. Europe’s underbelly is on fire. How long will it take before the conflagration reaches the EU’s inner core: that is France, and then Germany?

Will the widening social protests against austerity lead to a continent wide revolution as it did in 1848? Perhaps not, but the EU is faced with permanent fragmentation into blocs composed of “haves and have not” states which is reminiscent of pre-war and pre-revolutionary Europe. An unpalatable prospect indeed, for an institution which won the Nobel peace prize in 2012

FEDERAL IRELAND Irish Times Article

Is it time to revisit the idea of a federal Ireland?

Opinion: If the UK leaves the EU, the North’s status will change, perhaps disastrously

No compromise? The Stormont statue of unionist leader Sir Edward Carson, seen through a broken link, in Belfast. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Dennis Kennedy

• News
• Politics

Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 00:01

First published:Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 00:01

While the political parties at Stormont continue their shadow boxing and the world waits with bated breath for the insights of the US envoy to Northern Ireland, Gary Hart, into parades and flags, there seems little chance of what may be the biggest issue facing Northern Ireland even making it on to the agenda.

This is the accident that looks increasingly likely to happen: the UK’s exit from the European Union.

If it happens, the whole context in which the Belfast Agreement was framed, and in which the limited progress since then has been achieved, will be changed radically, and possibly disastrously.

The agreement makes only one mention of the EU (in the preamble, where EU membership is cited as one factor in the unique relationship between the UK and Ireland), but it is the framework of EU citizenship that validates its essential core: the idea that conflicting Irish and British identities can co-exist as equals within present-day Northern Ireland, pending some future resolution of the fundamental divide.

How would the promise in the agreement to “recognise the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose”, and accordingly to confirm their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship, be honoured if the UK, including Northern Ireland, was outside the EU, while the Republic was inside?

How would freedom of movement across the Border be guaranteed when one of the UK’s main motivations for leaving the EU would be to control migration? Would there be a return to a physical Border, with passport checks and queuing lorries? Would fresh restrictions on travel be placed on movement between the Republic and Britain, or even possibly between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK? How would the nationalist community inside Northern Ireland respond to such a situation? Would those now seemingly comfortable enough within the UK remain so? How would the more nationalistic respond to the prospect of Irish unity becoming even more distant, and to the reimposition of a visible controlled Border between North and South? How would Northern Ireland fare within a UK outside the EU?

Scotland would almost certainly demand, and get, a referendum to make its own decision on EU membership, and would most probably opt to stay in the EU, not the UK. That would leave Northern Ireland painfully isolated within a UK that would be even more dominated by the 90 per cent of the population living in England, who are manifestly becoming increasingly nationalistically British or, in reality, English.

Pro-European North

Northern Ireland is not regarded as rampantly pro-European – certainly its politicians are not – but it did vote Yes in the 1975 referendum to endorse membership. Academic research suggests that today the balance among the general public is for, not against, EU membership.

Northern Ireland is too small and too divided to permit the Scottish alternative of independence within the EU, so what options does it have, apart from voting No in any poll on leaving the EU and campaigning in Britain against exit on the grounds of the threat it would pose to a fragile peace?

The answer is very few, so is it time to revisit Conor Cruise O’Brien’s last and most controversial intervention in Northern affairs? In the late 1990s he suggested that the interests of the Protestant or unionist community in Northern Ireland were more threatened by the UK’s determination to do a deal with Sinn Féin/IRA than they would be by a negotiated deal with Dublin to unite Ireland under a federal-type arrangement that guaranteed all existing rights to all residents of the North. This community, he maintained, would be better able to defend its interests under such an agreement than it would as “despised hangers-on” and a tiny minority in the UK.

In a federal Ireland, unionists would be a formidable voting block in a system of government where coalitions are the rule rather than the exception. Conor Cruise O’Brien argued that London would be happy to be rid of Northern Ireland, and would facilitate such a move. Dublin might have more reservations but could hardly say no to the long-cherished goal of Irish unity. At that time, O’Brien also assumed that such a move would trump Sinn Féin, North and South. He did not foresee, it would seem, Sinn Féin’s continued electoral success in the North while playing a leading role in the administration of a devolved region of the UK. Nor, most likely, could he have predicted that party’s reinvention of itself in the Republic as the professed party of protest and social concern, and as the one party untainted by the tarnish that is staining politics generally (despite the much more sinister skeletons in its own cupboard).

Would any significant section of traditional unionism even look at a federal proposal? The once great obstacle of “Rome Rule” has almost vanished, but other roadblocks remain, and the answer is almost certainly no.

But might unionists consider it if life within a very much changed UK was less agreeable to them, and particularly if they felt they were being edged closer and closer to a united Ireland, either by pressure from London or by demographic change in Northern Ireland? This may be venturing into the land of fantasy, but then who foresaw the Chuckle Brothers, starring the immoderate moderator and the republican chief of staff, topping the bill at Stormont?

Everyone has his price, so what sort of price might unionism demand? Obviously a new constitution would be needed to accommodate the new Ireland, and some sort of devolved structure for what is now Northern Ireland.

Some things would have to go: the name of the state could no longer be Éire, nor could Irish be the “first national language”, nor the tricolour the national flag. (Though it’s not in the Constitution, a new national anthem would be needed, and we could throw in neutrality and the names of the railway stations as beyond their sell-by date.)

Constitutional opportunity

Apart from these and other adjustments, the negotiation of a new constitution would be a golden opportunity for the South to get rid of much superfluous material in the current one, and to ensure that matters properly belonging to the parliament are not needlessly put to a patently uninterested people in referendums in which most of them do not vote.
The constitution would have to reflect an ethos for the new entity to which all could subscribe. Writing more than 40 years ago, Michael Sweetman indicated what this might be: “We [in the Republic] have got to go back to 1912 and relinquish a great deal of what has happened since in order that both parts of the country can make a new start.” He deplored “consistent attempts to impose a narrow concept of Irishness, involving the primacy of Gaelic culture, the rejection of British strands in Irish traditions, and a particular view of history which made a virtue of fighting against Britain and a vice of defending British rule”.

And he added: “It is not from that kind of Republicanism, with its glorification of violence in the past and its incitement to violence in the present, that the new Ireland will come.”

That was written, by a then leading young Fine Gael thinker, before the Provisional IRA campaign had, over 30 years of pointless conflict, caused the loss of thousands of lives. What a tragedy that a Fine Gael Taoiseach could still say last month that he was always proud to be a 1916 man and that he saw the Rising as the central formative and defining act in the shaping of modern Ireland.

At this point we can probably stop fantasizing. The Rising was the “formative and defining act” of a partitioned Ireland, in which one part was in many ways Rome-ruled, socially conservative (to put it mildly) and at times dangerously ambivalent towards armed republicanism. This held no attractions whatever for the “divided brethren” in the North. Much has changed in many ways, and in the minds of many of the people, but the State, and its political leaders, cling to their founding fictions.

Waking up at this point would save us from wrestling with the question of where the £9 billion London transfers each year into Northern Ireland would come from. In 1998, Conor Cruise O’Brien blithely assumed that London would be so happy to be shot of Northern Ireland, and Dublin so pleased to welcome it, and the international community so delighted for us all, that they would all stump up. Fat chance of that now. All of which leaves Northern Ireland, as ever, in the quare place.

Dennis Kennedy is a former deputy editor of The IrishTimes, and was European Commission representative in Northern Ireland from 1985 to 1991

@Brian Clarke

Although there is much in the article I disagree with, and the Irish Times has always been a great platform for the Unionist tradition in Ireland, nevertheless it is a good article. As a former chairperson of Provisional Sinn Fein in Newry, who resigned, before.they became decadent, I am presently non -aligned to any political party. However as someone who supports a federal Ireland, as proposed by Ruarai O'Bradaigh of Republican Sinn Fein, I believe this article, would serve as an excellent discussion document, to open negotiations for a peaceful solution, to the primary Irish problems of division, bigotry and prejudice. Unfortunately self-politicians will not act on it, so once again only the ordinary people, from all communities will male it happen. Those who have Ireland's long term interests at heart and learned the lessons of our history, will make it happen with the dialectics of materialism, rather than violence. No it's not fantasy and the EU has a critical role, both materially and politically to take  responsibility as an honest broker, if the US & UK continue to fail to do so.