So - are you Irish or what?

I recently watched The History Boys on TV. It’s a fascinating play, set in a 1980s Sheffield grammar school, raising questions about history, education, sexual abuse and more, all in that laconic and sometimes hilarious style that Alan Bennett has perfected. Bennett is part of a gritty, provincial-England tradition of writing that I’ve always enjoyed. I got hooked with  Saturday Night and Sunday Morning back in the 1960s and I’m still an addict. 

Last Thursday I was part of a panel in Toomebridge, discussing what being Irish involves;  as I watched The History Boys I began to wonder if my addiction to this strand of British fiction made me in some way British. Memories of playing cowboys and Indians in the Christian Brothers’ Primary School yard followed, and how later as teenagers in St Columb’s College in Derry we soaked in the rock and roll of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Gene Pitney and the rest. Maybe those experiences had made me a bit American?

It’s a question of how we see the outside world and respond to it.  I’m convinced my life would have been the poorer if I hadn’t read Stan Barstow, Alan Sillitoe and the likes of  Alan Bennett. And I’m equally sure the music of Elvis and Co provided consolation for my ricocheting hormones back in the late 1950s. 

But did those influences make me less Irish? Some would say yes,  it’s all part of the ‘soft power’ that empires use. Power over weaker nations doesn’t have to come from the barrel of a gun  -  the more subtle weapon of culture in the widest sense of that word does the job as well or better. When you’ve taught  the world to sing in perfect har-mon-ee that they love Coca Cola, you’ve gone some way to making them into mini-Americans. British and American music, fashion, movies, TV shows:  you could see them as, um,  chipping away at your Irishness. 

Yet oddly enough, it was spending several years living in North America that switched me on to the unique beauty of things Irish: the landscape, the music and literature, the verve and passion of the Irish people.  A case, I suppose, of  learning to appreciate something because it’s been removed from your everyday experience.

So what is it to be Irish?  Is it to create a shield between ourselves and outside influences?  That’s the thinking behind the famous GAA ban on soccer or other ‘foreign’ games, and we know now it didn’t work.   Is it to be born in Ireland? Uh-uh. Michael McDowell changed that one when he was Minister for Justice in the south. Besides, three of my four children were born in Canada and now live in England. If you’re thinking of telling them they’re not Irish, let me know so I can be somewhere else.

Maybe it comes down to identification with a country. Here in the north, we have the strange situation that a large part of the population have in the past resisted identifying with things Irish, even though what they claim as a key part of their culture is represented in the Irish national flag. Until we find ways to move that sense of Irish identity from the symbolism of the flag to an on-the-ground reality, talk of Irish unity will remain empty verbiage.

Yes I know - there was a time when these things all seemed so much simpler.  But simple thinking crumbles in the face of complex reality.  National identification doesn’t come from closing down the hatches and telling the world to go away.  It comes from opening our minds to the ways in which other cultures may enrich us.  When we can do that without tumbling into West Britishness or Americanization, we’ll have become a balanced and mature people.

Alex Attwood and Ann Travers: judgement and compassion

Compassion - that’s what Alex Attwood stressed in that rather stressful encounter with the BBC’s Gareth Gordon yesterday. Alex was feeling more than a little tetchy at the time. He'd come from a  meeting with Ann Travers, the woman whose sister was shot dead by the IRA  29 years ago as it attempted to kill her father Tom Travers, a judge. As you probably know, Ann is on a mission, now that Mary McArdle is no longer a special adviser in Stormont, to have anyone who’s served five years or more barred from acting as a special adviser in Stormont. The SDLP has said it will not support a bill to this effect; Ann Travers has said that means they are "putting up two fingers to victims". Hence her meeting to get them to change their minds.

Compassion. Who could not feel compassion for a woman who has clearly suffered deeply since the day and hour that her sister was killed in 1984? However, compassion is one thing and judgement is another. The SDLP has already made a judgement not to support a bill precluding from special adviser office all those who’ve served five years or more. Ann Travers is intent on changing that judgement by drawing on the SDLP’s compassion. 

A dangerous mix. It is never wise to allow victims to make decisions about punishment, for the  good reason that they are victims. A victim feels the pain of loss and anger against those who have inflicted that loss; a judge is one who can detach him or herself from that pain and make a dispassionate decision on fitting punishment. If Alex Attwood or the SDLP allow Ann Travers to decide what the party’s views on this matter should be, they will have allowed compassion to over-rule judgement.

A final and important point on this. Twice yesterday in her TV interview, Ann Travers declared she was speaking on behalf of all victims, in her pursuit of this matter.  She’s wrong. There are literally thousands of people who are victims of the conflict here.  Not all of them feel that their pain calls for the barring from office of anyone who has served five years or more. Some of them feel the very opposite. Ann Travers has every right to speak for herself. She has no right to say she speaks for all victims. 

Mike Nesbitt and how not to swim

I’m sure Mike Nesbitt isn’t drowning and I’m sure if he were, he would swim his way to safety, but at present he’s making wild lungeing movements that suggest a politically-drowning man. His latest grab is in the direction of the English curriculum here.  In yesterday’s Irish Times  he’s reported as calling for the withdrawal of a book that he hasn’t read.

The book in question is Bog Child  and apparently Mike’s upset about the teaching notes that the CCEA have supplied to be used with it. The book is set in the 1980s and is the story of a teenager whose brother is on hunger strike and who finds a body in a bog.   The teaching notes suggest children study the hunger strikes of the time, put themselves in the shoes of Bobby Sands, and respond to the writings of Sinn Féin’s publicity chief at the time, Danny Morrison, as factual writing. The notes also mention the shame some children might have felt that their fathers worked as prison warders. 

“Do I not like that!”  Mike says, or words to that effect.  In fact, he dislikes it so much he’s called for action. “ This book and the related teaching guidance should be removed from the Northern Ireland curriculum immediately. Then an independent review of curriculum content must be instigated forthwith”. 

The CCEA say that teachers don’t have to teach Bog Child  if they don’t want to - it’s just a suggested text. The curriculum body also points out that matters such as the disappeared, Maggie Thatcher’s views on the hunger strikes and the thinking of Richard O’Rawe, whose views on the hunger strike are diametrically opposed to those of Danny Morrison, are part of the teaching notes.   

But Mike’s too busy thrashing around to hear that. “Let me be clear, this is not an attack on the book” he says.

Glug-glug.

The Irish government, abortion and suicidal women

My daughter (crosses fingers) will qualify as a doctor next month. At the moment she's not sure what she'll specialize in but she's leaning towards psychiatry. If she does choose to do so, I'm praying she doesn't opt to practice in the south of Ireland. Because there the government is intent on using psychiatrists as a political shield in the abortion debate.

Every year over 4,000 Irish women travel to England or Wales to have an abortion, since it's not available in the  26 counties. The Fine Gael-Labour coalition government has been driven to address the problem following the death of an Indian woman, Savita Halappanavar, who wanted an abortion but was reputedly told she couldn't because "Ireland is a Catholic country". So in an effort to do nothing while appearing to do something, Enda Kenny's government is arranging to pass a law that will allow for an abortion not only when the mother's life is at risk for physical reasons but also if she is suicidal. In other words, he's going to shift the responsibility for deciding regarding abortion in some cases onto the country's psychiatrists. They effectively will become the gatekeepers for some abortions in Ireland.

In how many cases? Well, that's where the hypocrisy of the government shows. According to the Irish Times  this morning, the actual incidence of suicide in pregnancy is between 1 in 250,000  and 1 in 500,000.  So clearly most of the 4,000+ women travelling to England and Wales every year for an abortion are not doing so because they feel suicidal.

Suicide, in fact, is a red herring. A dangerous red herring. According to another psychiatrist in this morning's Irish Times,  getting psychiatrists to judge regarding abortion and the danger of suicide is more likely to result in more young men in Ireland committing suicide, in that it might 'normalize' suicide.

In the very few cases where there is a risk of suicide by the pregnant woman, isn't the humane answer obvious?  In prisons, there's such a thing as keeping a prisoner on 'suicide watch': that is, the prisoner is looked after so that suicide becomes impossible. Why couldn't something similar be arranged in those very few cases where women expecting babies are suicidal? What Enda Kenny's government is planning is that the problem will be solved by eliminating - i.e., killing - the baby.

No I don't know the answer to the 4,000 Irish women who travel abroad to have an abortion every year.  But I do know a fake solution when I see one.

Nigel, Gerry and Scotland

Nigel Farage is a funny little man.  With his constant grin and low-set frame he looks like a cartoon character from the Film Fun comic of yesteryear.  Clearly Farage is tapping into the feelings of a right-wing section of the British population which aches for a return to the old days: when Britain was Great Britain and the place wasn’t ruled from Brussels or over-run by immigrants. Now, following UKIP’s success in the British local elections, he’s turned his gaze to Scotland. Being the leader of the UK Independence Party he is, of course, agin Alex Salmond and the SNP’s drive for independence. And the club he’s picked up to batter Salmond with is - would you believe it? - Gerry Adams. 

In Nigel’s considered opinion, Gerry Adams is a more honest and logical politician than Alex Salmond.  How so? Well, he says, the SNP leader has “hoodwinked” Scots, because he tells them that Scotland  can be independent and have a strong voice in the EU.

“Even though he [Mr Adams] is my least favourite politician, the Sinn Féin position has always been Northern Ireland out of the UK and out of the European Union.”

Well, I’d say Gerry Adams is relieved  he’s disliked by Nigel. With a friend like that, who’d need enemies, and Adams has enough of those.  Nigel is right, of course, that Gerry Adams wants, like all genuine nationalists and republicans, the removal of Northern Ireland from the UK to become part of a new Ireland.  But maybe Farage should stop grinning long enough to check out Sinn Féin policy on the EU. It’s all there on their website, Nigel. 

“We want to build a Europe of Equals - a true partnership of equal sovereign states, co-operating in social and economic development in Europe and beyond. We want an EU that promotes peace, demilitarisation and nuclear disarmament and the just resolution of conflicts under the leadership of a reformed, renewed and democratised United Nations. Ultimately, we want a future United Ireland to take an active, leading role in such a reformed EU”.

 But then Nigel’s not alone in misrepresenting Sinn Féin’s position on Europe.  Right-wing parties south of the border - notably Fine Gael -  do the same thing. In Dail debates, Enda Kenny is never slow to accuse Sinn Féin of being anti-Europe. Well yes, Enda, if by the EU you mean a place where  Berlin sets your budget and the population is burdened with back-breaking debt that’ll take decades to reduce, never mind pay off.

But while Nigel’s wrong about  Sinn Féin's stance on Europe, he’s right to link the pressure for independence in Scotland with the same thing in Ireland.   When I interviewed Ian Paisley Jr for my book Whose Past Is It Anyway?, he saw the link as well. He figured a revival of the 1912 Covenant spirit could help keep Scotland firmly in place: “I think it would be wonderful. It would be a real filip to unionist here that we had helped save the Scottish union now, a hundred years later”.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Lyndon Johnson used to justify US intervention in Vietnam by talking about a communist domino-effect through all the countries of South-East Asia if the US didn't intervene.  Scotland today is less a domino and more of a corner-stone of the Union. If Scotland were to vote for independence - and don’t rush to dismiss the possibility that it will  - then the whole concept of a United Kingdom would have been destabilised, with profound implications for us in Ireland. 

So well done, Nigel. You mightn’t have a clue  about Sinn Féin policy on Europe, but you’re right to link what’s happening in Scotland with what’s happening in Ireland. If one succeeds in achieving independence, stand by for something similar happening in the other.  Oh, and by the way, Nigel - keep campaigning against Scottish independence, would you?  Your every word helps stiffen Scot Nats’ resolve to run their own country. 

Getting mad about grammar schools

I lost my temper the other day. It’s something I used to do quite a bit when I was young but as  with many of my passions, it has dimmed with time. Mind you, once I’d cooled down I got angry all over again, this time with myself for having been annoyed. 

The source of my irritation was a man who - with some passion - corrected me for suggesting that secondary schools here are not as good as grammar schools. On mature reflection (as Brian Lenihan put it) I can see it was a crass and undiplomatic thing to say, given that my listener had taught for many years in a secondary school. What had catapulted me into making the statement was the question of whether, if you disapproved of the grammar school/secondary school divide, you should send your children to a secondary school. 

I know there are people who believe that it’s only in your actions you show your true beliefs. However, I’m not wholly convinced that, if you don’t believe in selection by academic ability, you should display these beliefs by sending your children to a secondary school. I quite appreciate the demands made on teachers in secondary schools - having taught in one and having visited over a thirty-year period both grammar and secondary school classrooms, there’s little question that for the most part, secondary classrooms make more demands on the teacher than grammar schools. So it would be possible to argue that secondary schools are in fact better than grammar schools, in that they work with children who have less appetite for the curriculum offered and often have little hesitation in telling the teacher as much. 

But if secondary schools are in fact better, how to explain the insistence by middle-class parents that grammar schools are kept in place and that selection by academic ability remains post 11+? The man who triggered my passing wrath explained it in terms of social status: parents didn’t want their children mixing with the riff-raff of secondary schools. I think he’s right in that and it is a factor sometimes overlooked. 

But there’s also the fact that young people tend to do what their friends do. And if they’re in classrooms where the assumption is that the pupils will secure good grades and proceed to university, those assumptions tend to be accepted and chances are the individual child will, to a greater or lesser extent, do likewise. There are children who’ll be more successful as the top stream in a secondary school rather than the bottom stream in a grammar school, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. By and large, a child in a grammar school is more likely to go on to third level education than one in a secondary school. 

So given that situation, I don’t blame any parent who wants to send their child to a grammar school, any more than I blame bankers or politicians for picking up fat salaries or pensions. The finger of accusation should be pointed at those who set up this unjust system and work to maintain it, rather than at those who try to navigate their way through the system that confronts them. 

There. Having got that off my chest I feel in less of a tearing-at-the-walls-with-my-nails mood already. 

Remembering 1916

I was down in Dublin over the Easter period and I happened to pass Hodges Figgis bookshop. The display window was filled with books of all sorts, many of them dealing with aspects of Easter 1916. My belief that the coming centenary will generate massive public interest is reinforced by a letter in today’s Irish Times by Tom Stokes, a grandson of John Stokes, who was part of the Boland Mills Garrison in 1916.  In the letter Stokes ticks off Alf MacLochlainn, the grand-nephew of Patrick Pearse, for lamenting the absence of commemorations of the Easter Rising. 

Stokes points out that he is the co-ordinator of the Citizens’ Campaign for Republic Day. They are hoping that on April 24, 2014, Republic Day will be celebrated in all 32 counties of Ireland building towards “a very significant and unique commemoration by citizens on Republic Day, 2016”.

I find that very cheering. Now that it’s safe to do so, many southern political parties will be trumpeting their republican credentials.  The south’s government in particular will be keen to take control of whatever commemorations are held.Stokes’s campaign seems to be non-party, which is a very good thing. The focus should be on the men and women who showed massive courage and dedication to the nation 100 years ago, not on political parties. I’m also cheered by Stokes speaking of all 32 counties. There are those who would like to glide past that aspect of the republic proclaimed on the steps of the GPO; they’d prefer to encourage people to think of real  Ireland existing south of the border only. If Stokes’s campaign achieved nothing else than to re-awaken a realisation in citizens south of the border that those of us living in this part of the island  - all of us living here, regardless of political views - are their fellow-countrymen, then his campaign will have been eminently worthwhile. 

Such a change, like a change almost 100 years ago, would be as miraculous as it is welcome.

Easter, 1916

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I have met them at close of day   

Coming with vivid faces

From counter or desk among grey   

Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head   

Or polite meaningless words,   

Or have lingered awhile and said   

Polite meaningless words,

And thought before I had done   

Of a mocking tale or a gibe   

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,   

Being certain that they and I   

But lived where motley is worn:   

All changed, changed utterly:   

A terrible beauty is born.