A Letter from Ireland
a Chara,
I keep a steady stack of books to read on my desk. Currently making its way up through the pile is the newly published “Building a Green Wall – Irish America’s Resurgence Post-Brexit” by Kimberly Cowell-Meyers and Carolyn Gallagher. The authors are highly respected academics with whom I have worked through the painful Brexit process.
The book details how Brexit, the threat of a hard border being imposed across Ireland, and the undermining of the Good Friday Agreement galvanised a section of Irish American political and civic leaders into action.
While I have not finished the book, and I will write a full review when I do, I know the ending.
Irish America was central to ensuring the US Congress and the US Administration under President Biden were central in bringing the British Government back to the negotiating table with the EU to minimise the disruption of Brexit on the institutions and trade, and progress secured by the Good Friday Agreement.
That work reduced the damage of Brexit. It has been disastrous for Britain with a loss of influence and an economy in the doldrums. But Brexit is still with us and is undermining work across Ireland, between the island of Ireland and Britain, and between Britain and the European Union. It remains a managed but unresolved issue. An issue that will be front and centre when the Irish Government takes over the EU Presidency for the second half of this year.
I was reminded of this when I read an opinion piece by the editor of the Irish Independent, Fionnán Sheahan, this week that called on the Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, to raise the issue of Irish Unity as part of the Presidency.
A united Ireland would mean that all of Ireland would be a full member of the EU and so resolve part of the all-Ireland damage done by Brexit. A proposal that no doubt would make full sense to the EU and the English nationalists who forced Brexit on the people of the North.
In the opinion piece, Mr Sheahan reminds readers that Ireland had the EU presidency in 1990 and assisted negotiations to allow a reunited Germany into the EU despite the opposition of Margaret Thatcher. In the article, he called out the Taoiseach for the nonsense of pursuing a strategy trying to convince unionists opposed to unity to see the light and stop being unionists and become united Irelanders.
It was a surprising and refreshing take by an editor of the Independent. Unionism does not have a veto on Irish Unity. The Good Friday Agreement is explicit; it is a majority of citizens and not one section of the community that will determine the constitutional future of Ireland.
The Irish Government has a constitutional imperative to pursue unity and should prepare and plan to win the referendums promised in the Good Friday Agreement.
Throughout the Brexit process, Irish America was galvanised to protect the Good Friday Agreement. It was a force for good and delivered. The same approach can and should be developed to resolve the continuing issues of Brexit across Ireland and to implement the unity referendums of the Good Friday Agreement.
Have a great weekend,
