Hanna calls for structured preparation for a New Ireland
in Ivy Day address

Speaking at the Parnell Society’s annual Ivy Day commemoration at the grave of Charles Stewart Parnell in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, SDLP Leader Claire Hanna MP has reflected on Parnell’s political legacy and its relevance to Ireland’s constitutional future.

Marking the 135th anniversary of Parnell’s death, Hanna delivered the annual Ivy Day oration after laying a wreath at his grave. Drawing on the constitutional nationalist tradition of Parnell, Daniel O’Connell and John Hume, she set out the case for serious preparation for constitutional change, rooted in reconciliation, pluralism and respect for different identities and traditions.

Hanna called on the Irish Government to establish a Ministry for a New Ireland to coordinate planning and convergence, and urged the UK Government to provide greater clarity on the criteria for calling a border poll. She argued that both governments should begin structured preparation now, ensuring the detail is worked through before people are asked to make a constitutional choice.

Full Speech Delivered by SDLP Leader Claire Hanna MP

Is mór an onóir dom an cuireadh uaibh, An Chumann Pharnell, an óraid seo a thabhairt inniu. Nuair a tím an liosta dona daoine eirimiúla a thug an óraid seo sna blainta romhaim, tá umhail orm.

I am honoured and grateful for the invitation from the Society and to mark the one hundred and thirty fifth anniversary of Parnell’s death on 6 October 1891 and his interment here after 200,000 people accompanied his remains to Glasnevin, the largest funeral cortege ever seen in Dublin.

Like members of the Society and so many people in Ireland and abroad, I have been fascinated and intrigued by the man, the myth and the romance of Parnell, and how Parnell is suffused in the works of Yeats and Joyce.  

At this remove, we can still feel the power of Parnell’s charisma and the impact he made on his contemporaries and his antagonists, when someone like William Gladstone in his old age, 4-time Prime Minister of the UK, and with all his own lifetime of achievement, could describe Parnell as ‘the most remarkable man I have ever met…and the most interesting…an intellectual phenomenon’.

For me, Parnell is one of a trinity of great Irish democratic nationalist political leaders, starting with Daniel O’Connell, then Parnell and thirdly leader and lodestar of the SDLP, John Hume. By ‘nationalist’, I mean an unswerving commitment to democratic and peaceful means towards political progress, and a dedication to the destiny of Ireland being controlled by the people of Ireland, in all their difference and diversity. 

O’Connell led the people of Ireland, the great majority of whom were already deprived of basic civil rights by the very fact of their being Catholic, and then rail-roaded into an undemocratic union with Great Britain. The Liberator, by sheer force of personality, built up the first mass organised democratic political movement in the world.

Having achieved Catholic Emancipation, O’Connell saw the second great objective of his political life – Repeal of the Act of Union – brought to ashes by the disaster of An Gorta Mor, the Great Irish Famine.

A few decades later Parnell took over leadership of a demoralised Irish nationalist movement and in a few short years, mainly through sheer force of his personality, built up the first ever disciplined political party machine anywhere, under his firm control and funded by the burgeoning political and financial strength of Irish America.

He countered the power and influence of the sometimes-absentee Anglo-Irish landlord class from whence he came and set the scene for a resolution of centuries of tenant grievance over the land issue a few decades hence, culminating in the 1903 Wyndham Act. He gave people back their self-respect by rallying demoralised masses and by educating them on the power of democratic self-government.

No mean feat, this commitment to democracy by the vast majority of the people of the Republic has endured throughout the whole of the twentieth century and into the third decade of the twenty first century in the Irish republic.

Unlike so many of the states which came into being in the aftermath of the First World War, the Irish Republic has stuck to democracy and firmly opposed to those who would seek to undermine it by violence and fascist action.

Parnell did not spend a lot of his time in Ulster or on the Ulster question. He was not particularly close to his most prominent Ulster parliamentary lieutenant, the Belfast-born butcher and ‘Father of Obstruction’, Joseph Gillis Biggar MP, who regularly drove Mr. Speaker Sir Henry Brand to fury with his monotone and repetitive speeches which went on for up to four hours in a harsh Northern accent. All this was retaliatory action against the refusal of the Commons and the Government to discuss local affairs – as a Westminster MP who has sat through many hours from my constituency neighbours…

I can confirm that some traditions persist across the North’s traditions and decades!

However, Parnell’s most significant speech in relation to the North was given on May 1891, within five months of his death, in the Ulster Hall in my own South Belfast constituency. All politics is local, as I believe was your theme yesterday in Avondale.

All we have is the reported speech taken down by the editor of the Northern Whig, not the original, but this is something of what Parnell said that evening:

“…it is the duty of the majority to leave no stone unturned, no means unused, to conciliate the reasonable or unreasonable prejudices of the unionist minority…it has been undoubtedly true that every Irish patriot has always recognised… that until the prejudices of the minority are conciliated…Ireland can never enjoy perfect freedom …so long as there is this important minority who consider rightly or wrongly… that the concession of legitimate freedom to Ireland means harm and damage to them.”

Parnell’s words from one hundred and thirty-five years ago remain relevant today as they were that evening in the Ulster Hall and his aims are being taken forward by the SDLP, through the framework – the Good Friday Agreement – created by John Hume.

Over the Brexit years many of the assumptions which underpinned political life have changed:

• Relationships within and between Britain and Ireland have shifted.
• Old political certainties have weakened, new questions are being asked.
• More and more people, not just in the North, are wondering whether the arrangements that have shaped our politics – our economy, our public services – remain fit for purpose.

In that context, deep thinking and political leadership about the future of these islands is essential and that is the purpose and mission of the SDLP of the present.

It is the belief of the SDLP that we should shape events, not just react to them.

The question is not whether change is happening but whether we can shape it, for the common good.

The North is already changed beyond the traditional binary – I think in time, even the difficult and turbulent events of this week and Drumcree, will reflect that.

Beyond our traditional quarrel, there are the threats and challenges posed by artificial intelligence, justice in the global economy, climate.

You will not be surprised to hear me say that it is the firm belief of my party, as it was for John Hume, that the most desirable future we can see for the people of this island is as part of a new and agreed Ireland within the European Union. The work needed to achieve this is bigger than any one party, bigger than any electoral cycle, and bigger than the day-to-day rhythms of politics.

The SDLP is committed to

• cross party working on a New Ireland.
• set of principles that can help guide debate, identify areas of agreement and disagreement, and provide a structure for the serious work to be done.

This has been done before … In 1984, the New Ireland Forum provided a space for the democratic political parties to come together and think seriously about the future.

This led to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement and then to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Today, all who aspire to a New Ireland should show the same spirit of cooperation and purpose.

There are many who already support a New Ireland, and many who oppose it. But the people who will determine our constitutional future are currently undecided. The evidence shows that these voters are not closed off to constitutional change.

They are looking for answers. They are looking for ambition beyond our stifling local horizon.

They are looking for political agency that feels absent from Stormont’s chaos. They know that what we have now is not as good as it gets.

They want to understand how a New Ireland would work, how we would get there, and whether it would deliver tangible improvements in their lives.

There are who use those voters uncertainty as a justification for doing nothing at all.

They argue that because people have questions and concerns, that we should avoid the conversation altogether and just focus on piecemeal tweaks to a failing status quo.

People, voters, can be unsure, of course, but political parties have a duty to set the direction. Not to be passengers on a journey others design.

Whatever we decide to do here the UK is changing, but when we fail to recognise shifting tides, opportunities are missed and events can overtake us. Doing Nothing, leaving us a hostage to fortune, is a choice currently being made by some.

There will always be another election.

There will always be another crisis.

There will always be another reason to delay big conversations until some more convenient time.

But political change rarely waits for the perfect moment.

Taking responsibility means not some predetermined outcome but planning and designing now.

Of course, that doesn’t mean checking out of making life better right now.

The SDLP is clear that the journey really matters and that the best path to a new Ireland is through a functioning and workable Northern Ireland with improved governance. In Stormont, we are a rare political phenomenon – an Opposition working hard to ensure a government stays in place.

But we have also called on the Irish government to establishment a Ministry for a New Ireland to coordinate planning and convergence, to realise opportunities and to colour in the details *before* people are asked to make a choice.

Preparing for the future is what responsible governments do.

It’s what the Irish government did for so ably before Brexit happened, even though it hoped that Brexit wouldn’t happen.

And responsible preparation requires action from more than one government.

As well as working with us to reform Stormont so it is fit for purpose right now, the UK Government should consult and provide clarity on the criteria that would inform a decision to call a border poll.

The principle of consent is core to the Good Friday Agreement, but the pathway to exercising it remains unnecessarily opaque.

Democratic Ireland has a big role in shaping that, but people are entitled to understand the rules that govern such an important question, and they’re entitled to honesty from political parties that we aren’t at that tipping point yet.

This isn’t about throwing out border poll dates.

None of that answers the big and legitimate questions people have.

But the time is right for both governments to work together on structured preparedness.

The objective can’t simply be to mobilise those who already agree.

And the project requires more than a blueprint for new institutions or a set of economic projections.

It requires an understanding of the kind of society we are trying to build.

A New Ireland can’t be a continuation of a divided society under a different constitutional arrangement. It shouldn’t just flip around the dynamic of partition.

It should recast this island as a positive, pluralist place; a society mature enough to acknowledge the wrongs and scars of the past, but confident enough not to be defined by them.

It means reconciliation; not as an event, not as a veto, but as a way of living.

Until we get to grips with that, the promise of something better will ring hollow for too many people.

If constitutional change is to command broad support we need to show not just how a New Ireland would function, but what it would stand for.

So we say to all parties committed to this project; if you support a New Ireland be ready to stretch your own story, your own thinking on what it means to be Irish or British and help to build a credible and practical roadmap.

If you believe that the North’s future is best served in the UK – which may or may not be a view shared by some here today, and a legitimate one – then articulate how it can be an improvement on a failing status quo.

Because that’s the reality here, the status quo is failing me and my constituents.

If we want to persuade people, then we must also be honest with them.

We must recognise that constitutional change would represent a profound moment in the history of this island.

We must understand that of course people have concerns about what that would mean for their identity, their place in society, their future.

The success of any future settlement will depend not on the strength and volume of our conviction, but on our willingness to listen, to accommodate and to reassure.

That means being more explicit about the protections and guarantees that will underpin a New Ireland. It means legitimising doubt and questions.

It means demonstrating that change can be inclusive rather than exclusive, and that it can create space for multiple identities and traditions to flourish.

It means that while 50%+1 is an acceptable threshold for change, the SDLP want to see as big a majority as possible supporting a New Ireland.

It is about the idea that constitutional change is about more than an expression of identity – but a process of building a new nation, a new society, a new economy -on shared values

The debate about our constitutional future should be a race to the top, not a race to the bottom.

Not a competition based on either fearmongering or hothousing.

A contest of ideas – a conversation about who has the best vision, the best plan – for creating opportunity, prosperity and a better quality of life. A society and country fit for the modern world.

The strongest foundation for the future has always been hope.

People want secure jobs, affordable homes and functioning public services. They want cohesion, they want their votes to mean something and politicians that work for and with their mandate.

They want opportunities for their children. Whether in Belfast, Dublin, London, Edinburgh or Cardiff people are looking for answers to those questions.

In the north they are increasingly unwilling to accept being told to just wait.

So, we cannot continue to treat this debate as something that can be endlessly deferred; something that is inconvenient or irresponsible.

Change does not wait for governments to become comfortable with it. 

The SDLP is asking political parties to put aside, where we can, the day-to-day politicking, the narcissism of small differences, and focus on the bigger task before us. A new Ireland, and with a better Northern Ireland along the way.

The question is whether we want to simply stumble into it by accident and dysfunction or step forward into the future with confidence and purpose.

I know which choice I believe is the right one.

And I hope that, together, we will have the courage to make it.

Míle buíochas daoibh go léir as ucht do aire don méid ráite agam inniu.