A Letter from Ireland
a Chara,
Last week, the President of Ireland, Catherine Connolly, made good on her election pledge to represent all Irish citizens when she travelled to Derry to speak at a number of events.
Derry is in the North of Ireland. A majority Irish city that, following partition, found itself on the British-controlled side of the border. For years, pro-British Unionists controlled the local council through gerrymandering and the denial of the basic democratic principle of one person, one vote.
Discrimination in employment and the allocation of housing left the Irish majority powerless in the city. It would become one of the birthplaces of the civil rights movement.
On Bloody Sunday in the city, British paratroopers shot dead thirteen civil rights protestors.
Today, it is a shared city with an Irish Nationalist majority.
At one event during the Presidential visit, Gregory Campbell, a Member of Parliament for the Democratic Unionist Party, said to President Connolly, “You’re in our country. Tonight I’m going to your country.” Campbell was due to travel to Dublin later that evening.
It was simple. Two-lines that spoke volumes. Afterwards, the MP criticized the President for not referring to the city as “Londonderry”, a name preferred by Unionists over the commonly referred to name Derry.
What I found jarring was the use of “our country”. The North of Ireland is not a country by any definition, and it is no longer the sole preserve of unionism.
The Democratic Unionist Party is a smaller party than Sinn Féin, and it represents less than a quarter of the people. They do not speak for the majority of people, never mind all of the people.
I was born in the North of Ireland, and as an Irish Citizen I owe no allegiance to a partitioned state. Like many, I view President Connolly as president of the Irish nation. The North, like all parts of Ireland, is her home.
The phrases echoed back to an era long gone, but still alive in the minds of some. Equally, the policing of the language of others is zero sum came.
Those who read these letters will note that I never use the term “Northern Ireland” for the six counties or refer to the twenty-six counties in the South as “Ireland”. Neither would I refer to “Londonderry”.
I also would never correct anyone else’s use of the terms. I respect the views, history, and identity of others and expect others to show the same respect to me.
It is an old, but typically unionist approach to demand respect for their history and identity by calling on others to deny their own identity.
Partition did what it set out to do: it divided the country and its people. To talk about “our country” and “your country”. The language of division was heard loud and plain last week.
Martin McGuinness, a son of Derry once quipped, “some call it Londonderry, I call it Derry, but we can all agree it’s legenderry”
This division can be consigned to history. Our Island can and should be united.
Perhaps then we can all refer to a new Ireland as being “our country and your country” or more simply a home for all.
Have a great weekend,
