Nearly 50 years ago, on February 2nd 1972, I was part of a demonstration outside the British Embassy in Dublin. The large crowd, estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000, had assembled to protest the killing of 13 unarmed civilians by members of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment in Derry.
It seemed like the least that should be done to protest that massacre.
Following three days of demonstrations, petrol bombs were thrown along with stones and missiles, flags were burned and eventually the Embassy was set on fire and destroyed. Other buildings were also attacked and burned.
The demonstrations and the burnings were not simply about what had happened in Derry but were more broadly about the British Government’s response and its overall behaviour. As was evidenced later (following multiple investigations and tribunals), the Government lied about the event, falsely claiming that the soldiers had come under fire first and were simply protecting themselves.
It was but one act in the dark and vicious history known euphemistically in Ireland as the ‘Troubles’ in which 3,700 plus people died, over 50% of them civilian. There were many other such acts of killing, the majority perpetrated by the IRA and other republican organisations.
Cumulatively, these acts and the agendas they represented constitute one strand in the long history of our islands and peoples. In Ireland, we have been reminded of this recently by the centenaries of Irish independence and the creation of the Northern Ireland state. In Britain, our joint histories have also been highlighted differently by the Brexit saga and its attendant politics and agendas.
Since the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and the gradual embedding of its underlying peace process, relations between Britain and Ireland have become increasingly ‘normalised’ (as befits close neighbours). Old certainties and bigotries have been set aside by a majority of people. EU membership has been a transformative yeast in this process. But now much of this is under attack.
By definition, Ireland’s interests now lie in challenging Brexit.
One of the many things Brexiteers refuse to consider is the reality that EU membership has transformed Ireland, ending the era of domination by and dependence on Britain and there is now no desire to return to that past.
This reality has been damaged by the political and cultural gymnastics of Brexit itself and by the absolute refusal of many to acknowledge, let alone think about the consequences for relationships within and between both islands. Matching arrogance with ignorance, many ultra-Brexiteers view the legal and mutually agreed Northern Ireland Protocol and the current ‘on again, off again’ negotiations as the outcome solely of Brussels intransigence and Irish bloody mindedness.
They refuse to accept any responsibility for their behaviour, their actions, and their intolerance of the equal rights of others. The search of some for historical and ‘global’ chimera must trump previous understandings and accommodations.
Once again, people on both islands are being bullied into accepting regressive and damaging stereotypes of each other. The ongoing strategy of the Johnson administration to manipulate and set aside the inevitable implications of Brexit for Ireland (North and South) as being of no importance is damaging hard won historical relations and the peace process itself.
Half the lies we are again telling ourselves are true…and the other half are not.
In a bizarre fashion, one referendum (on Brexit) has fuelled demands for another referendum (on a united Ireland) without appropriate considerations of consequence. One set of rights must be allowed override another set. This is a zero-sum game.
The centenary of Irish independence and the fiftieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday should remind us that history and geography dictate that no matter what political interests dominate on either island, the futures of the two countries and peoples are as irrevocably intertwined, as they have always been.