A Letter from Ireland
a Chara,
It will come as no surprise that I love elections. I have been involved in winning and losing campaigns and the cycle of ups and downs. It is a brutal experience and the only job in which you get publicly sacked and immediately asked by a reporter how you feel about it!!.
It is also a chance to listen to people, learn what matters, and escape your own bubble. Watching from Ireland, I’m astonished by the sums of money involved in these campaigns. One candidate’s cost in a congressional race would pay for the costs of all parties in a national election in Ireland. It was heartening to see that spending does not always dictate the outcome of races. That the people are sovereign.
Elections always prove the power of the vote, looking at you, Mississippi. So I look forward to working with the next Congress just as I did with the previous one.
As politics in the States is changing, so are things in Ireland. In the North, a minority of the pro-British Unionists are calling for the collapse of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, rejecting power sharing today in the vain hope of returning to the supremacy of the past.
The largest unionist party in government, the DUP, has not yet joined the minority but has instead refused to work “publicly” with the Sinn Féin First Minister. How sustainable this nonsense position is among its own supporters, or within the work of government, remains to be seen.
To date, they have blocked the Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill and their own deputy First Minister from attending a meeting with the British Prime Minister to discuss economic development—the classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Michelle O’Neill has made it clear that while the Assembly in the North operates, Sinn Féin will continue to work for the betterment of all the people. The Assembly has well-known limitations and built-in dysfunction, rooted in partition and a budget set by whatever government is in power in London. Sinn Féin is clear: Irish Unity is best for all our people, our economy, and our public services.
This fact now seems to be belatedly recognised by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who has now moved to a position in which he will bring to government proposals to examine models of Irish Unity: one with a single government, one with a government in Dublin and devolved institutions in the North or also an option of maintaining the status quo. He has yet to explain how partition would be the preferred choice for Fianna Fáil or an Irish Government.
It should be noted that this weekend his partners in Government, Fine Gael, are due to bring forward their own plans for progressing Unity. While all the other parties across Ireland are on the pitch to promote Unity, it seems Micheál Martin is eventually warming up on the sidelines.
It has been a big week in politics in the US, in the North and for the cause of Unity in Dublin. The people in the US are sovereign and have exercised their democratic right to determine their future. The same needs to be afforded to the people of all Ireland in a vote in favour of Unity or continued division. Let democracy reign, and the people’s voice be heard in Irish Unity Referendums.
Have a great weekend,
