He asks, rhetorically of course, in response to Gerry Adams recent comments:
"Gerry Adams description of any deal on policing and justice as only “A STAGING POST” should alert every Unionist to what is afoot. Staging post to where?"Allister half-answered his own question:
"Clearly, for Sinn Fein getting a deal at Hillsborough is not the "completion" of a devolutionary journey within the UK, but merely ticks off another item on their wish list, while they position themselves to again bring government to a standstill the next time they need further delivery from the DUP on their all-Ireland agenda.Gosh! With brains as sharp as Jim's following their every move, nationalists will have to be even more devious. He has twigged that Sinn Féin's ultimate destination is not 'devolution within the UK', but rather an 'all-Ireland'. In case he is in any doubt about what an 'all-Ireland' is (and it could be a sporting event), let this blog explain it to him in simple terms.
The agenda of republicanism is insatiable. No Unionist should be playing their long game by providing this ‘staging post’ towards an all-Ireland."
Nationalists of all hues – Sinn Féin, SDLP, and others – are aiming towards a united 32 county sovereign Ireland. Achievement of that will represent the end of the process, and at that point even Sinn Féin may be satisfied. Anything less is not the end, and is therefore by definition merely a staging post or a temporary arrangement. Get used to it, Jim, because that's the road ahead.
13 comments:
If history has taught us one thing it is that you cannot fight native nationalism, whether it be quelled temporarily, delayed or unpopularised, so long as you hold a region against it's historical and cultural heritage you will never be rid of opposition.
Unionism might as well face up to the fact that the tide is turning back in favour of nationalism as the most likely outcome of the "Ulster project" once again - as has been the case throughout most of history, with the years between now and partition were being just a temporary delay.
Sorry Horseman, your blog is not bad at all and free from much of the extremism that sullies bloggers on both sides of the divide.
However, if you take time to read SF's prospectus, it's pretty clear that they don't really want a united 32 county sovereign Ireland. Why would they? Unless they are expecting a massive electoral bounce based on somehow delivering the end of partituion (and answers on a postcard how this will be achieved within the next seventy years, never mind the seventy months now remaining until their 2016 delivery date...), they'll be a minority, one issue party who's one issue has disappeared.
You can see by the grimness with which Gerry and his cohorts continue to cling to power even as a series of child abuse scandals rock the SF hierarchy, even to the extent of subjecting smore credible southern representatives such as ML McDonald to ridicule from which they will not recover, ensuring that SF will never become a viable political force in the Republic, that these guys are hardly going to simply surrender their positions of power and their fat (currently British state paid) salaries just like that.
No, SF, if you take a close read of their literature (holding your nose and remembering that historians still read stuff like Mein Kampf by the IRA's old mucker Adolf) are aiming for a devolved Ulster under laissez fair Dublin rule, where they think a sectarian headcount would make them the largest party and they could roll out the old De Valera manual on how to ethnically cleanse all Protestants from your territory.
That loveable Dev, committed to creating a Catholic state for Catholic people. But then, Horseman, you know that, as you've quoted James Craig's response - out of context of course - at the top of your blog...
"But then, Horseman, you know that, as you've quoted James Craig's response - out of context of course - at the top of your blog..."
Dont remember Dev making any such comment in or out of context!
Please explain Craigs!
The Craig quote in full from Stormont Hansard:
"The hon. Member must remember that in the South they boasted of a Catholic State. They still boast of Southern Ireland being a Catholic State. All I boast of is that we are a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State. It would be rather interesting for historians of the future to compare a Catholic State launched in the South with a Protestant State launched in the North and to see which gets on the better and prospers the more. It is most interesting for me at the moment to watch how they are progressing. I am doing my best always to top the bill and to be ahead of the South.."
So, as you can see, Craig's claims are a direct response to the proud boasts of De Valera and others that they were creating a Catholic state for Catholic people in the south. Given the demogrphic change in the Republic's population since 1921, you have to say they made a brutally good job of it. Certainly far better than Craig did, despite all the repression the "poor Cafflicks" suffered under the Stormont regime
peteram79,
Your Hansard quote is not proof of anything other than the Craig quote. De Valera is neither mentioned nor quoted. If you think that De Valera boasted of a 'Catholic state' you'll have to do better.
You'll remember, no doubt, that De Valera resisted making Catholicism the official religion in the constitution, and that the first President was a Protestant. In fact, so well were/are Protestants integrated in the south that there is not, and never has been, a movement amongst Protestants to reverse independence.
Regarding the decline in Protestant numbers in the south, you might read the blog on Monaghan 1861-1911 (http://ulstersdoomed.blogspot.com/2009/05/monaghan-1861-1911.html).
My Hansard quote is proof that a)you have misquoted Craig and b) he made a statement regarding the Protestant nature of Northern Ireland in response to the stated Catholic nature of the Republic of Ireland. Whether is was De Valera or one of his cronies that made the original claim is pretty immaterial.
And why are you directing me to your Monaghan post? As the comments section clearly shows, the share of the Protestant population of Monaghan compared to the Catholic share was stablein the 1861-1911 period and crashed off afterwards. In other words your statistics, far from reinforcing your point, actually contradict it.
peteram79,
I never claimed to be actually quoting Craig. Hence the lack of quotation marks. My use of the expression 'protestant state for a protestant people' is, if anything, merely a reference to the mind-set behind unionism.
And you still haven't found any represerntative of the sothern state who 'boasted' about it being a Catholic state.
Follow the links in the Monaghan blog. You'll find the CSO data series on religion (per county) in the period from 1861 onward. It is very interesting, and shows protestant populations dropping rapidly even during victoria's reign. Prod populations only stabilised after independence, but by then the numbers were already very low. Most southern Prods, btw, don't give much of a damn about religion, and hence often marry (ex-)catholics, leading to a further decline in Prod numbers.
Craig= naked sectarian bigot.
Horseman, Andy McCunt has a post over on ATW about you?
If he is so sure of Northern Ireland's place in the Union why does he support the TUV?
From the TUV website
"the Belfast Agreement's design is to ease Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom and into an all-Ireland "solution"
Yes, McCann has a longish article about this blog on ATW. He seems rather obsessed. Still, I suppose all publicity is good publicity, and even though he was careful not to link to Ulster's Doomed he was obliged to mention its name so nobody will have any trouble finding it.
Welcome to all our new readers!
Andy also doesn't allow anybody to comment on any of his posts because he knows that his views can be discredited so easily.
But give him a break, he is getting over the tantrum he had just recently. Not only censoring comments to his own post! going into another contributors post and deleting comments that proved his views to be wrong.
That is very non-British! And we know he has such strong views about Muslim countries were such censoring is quite common.
Thankfully David gave him a talking to and hopefully he will be a good boy from now on.
Whats so funny about his censoring is that it makes him look so stupid. If I was him I definitely would not be posting in my own name.
Search the web and you find that he has a pattern of censoring people who disagree with him on the very website that he is a contributor.
It is called dignity. If you put your views out there to the public you should be willing to stand by them.
Instead Andy (he likes it when you call him that) is a coward.
He could learn a few things from the Horseman.
'Andy also doesn't allow anybody to comment on any of his posts because he knows that his views can be discredited so easily.'
Actually, 'Andy' doesn't allow comments on his website because he was constantly bombarded with insults - usually from republicans unable to face a contrary viewpoint.
'Thankfully David gave him a talking to and hopefully he will be a good boy from now on.'
Is that what you think happened when I spoke to David on the phone? (LOL).
'He could learn a few things from the Horseman.'
Delusion? Spin? What?
Returning to De Valera:
1931 - "There was an Irish solution that had no reference to any other country; a solution that came from our traditional attitude to life that was Irish and Catholic. That was the solution they were going to stand for so long as they were Catholic."
1935 - "Since the coming of St Patrick, fifteen hundred years ago, Ireland has been a Christian and a Catholic nation. All the ruthless attempts made down the centuries to force her from this allegiance have not shaken her faith. She remains a Catholic nation."
1937 - Irish Constitution: The State recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens.
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