A Letter from Ireland
a Chara,
Greetings from Ottawa. I am in Canada to update political representatives on developments in Ireland. This weekend I will be in Halifax, Nova Scotia to speak at an Irish Unity event. The links between Ireland and the East Coast of Canada are as fascinating as they are enduring. They are our closest neighbours to the West Coast of Ireland.
Earlier this week I was in New York planning and preparing for the a visit by Sinn President Mary Lou McDonald to New York and Chicago in late November. It is shaping up to be an exciting and innovative trip. Greg has added the information on those events in the newsletter and I hope you can one of them.
In New York and Ottawa one question kept being raised, “Why is an Taoiseach Micheál Martin so opposed to planning and preparing for Irish Unity?”
On different occasions he has answered that ending partition is “complicated,” that “now is not the time,” and was even quoted as saying that those raising the question of unity referendums was sending him “bananas.” He has proposed that reconciliation is a precursor for any unity referendum – an Orwellian world maintenance of division as an aid to reconciliation
At different times he has pointed to the Shared Island unit that promotes cross border work as sufficiently progressing unity while at other times he has stressed that the Shared Ireland unit is not a trojan horse for unity.
Micheál Martin’s recent political achievements have been to return Fianna Fáil to power, first in keeping a Fine Gael to minority government in power and since 2020, sharing power with Fine Gael. The focus appears to be maintaining a political status quo. During that time the housing crisis has deepened, cost of living increased, and public services struggling and workers going on strike.
These two parties that have controlled government since the state was founded and are out of ideas and focus at maintaining power at all costs.
But the ground under Micheál Martin is narrowing. His partners in government, Fine Gael, are bringing forward their own proposals of Irish Unity in November. Sinn Féin – the largest party across all of Ireland – has continued to hold the Taoiseach to account for his refusal to engage in any meaningful way with the opportunity we now have to secure a united Ireland.
In the north, the SDLP, the party of John Hume, has called for planning and preparing for Unity as have all of the parties of the Opposition in the Dáil.
President Trump said he supported Irish Unity and when sitting beside the Taoiseach, said that Micheál was the guy to get it done. A couple of weeks ago, standing beside an Taoiseach, New York City Mayor Mamdani restated his support for Irish national self-determination and added that every know what 26 plus 6 equals.
The leader of Fianna Fáil, the current Taoiseach, now shares a common platform with the British Government and pro-partition Unionist parties in the North.
Last week the Taoiseach described partition as a “disaster” and made a reference to bringing forward some proposals at some time in the future. Whether this is a true change of heart or another stall to maintain an increasingly failing political status quo remains to be seen. Meanwhile the rest of us are moving ahead and working to create a new and united Ireland.
Have a great weekend,
