What unionists must do now to get the thumbs up from Europe
Thursday, 30 April 2009
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You don’t have to agree with Robert Ramsay’s politics to recognise his “insider’s view of the crisis in Northern Ireland” as the most intriguing treatise on the future of unionism to have emerged in recent years. Not, mind you, that the competition has been fierce.
Ramsay closes Ringside Seats, his account of 40 years as a senior civil servant in Belfast and Brussels, with a call to unionists to recognise that they might best find salvation “in embracing the opportunity to define (themselves) as one of the ‘European peoples’ which feature in the EU treaties... This would put them on a par with the Catalans, Basques, Corsicans, Bretons and South Tyroleans, and other ethnic groups”.
Certainly, it flags up new possibilities. Ramsay was successively Brian Faulkner’s principal private secretary during the final tumultuous years of the old Stormont administration, deputy secretary of the Northern Ireland civil service, European director of inward investment, PPS to Secretary of State Roy Mason, chief of staff to Henry Plumb during the Tory grandee’s stint as president of the European Parliament, and has occupied a series of other significant positions along the way. The CV suggests the perfect model of a modern Euro mandarin.
But, although it’s evident he remained ardently loyal throughout to the community he came from, he’s no mandarin Orangeman. The British institutions which traditional unionism has historically idealised and identified with, the monarchy, the reformed faith, the majesty of British law, are all now diminished, demystified, he observes. “The average unionist now views GB in a very different light... Psychologically, the union is over on both sides of the Irish Sea. The unionist community needs to acquire a post-union identity.”
The fact that unionist loyalty to Britain is no longer reciprocated — if ever it was — had become clear to him early in his career, at Faulkner’s side when the British Government’s ‘liaison office’ was set up at Laneside, Cultra, in 1971, preparing the way for direct rule. The Cultra facility, he recalls, was “more like an embassy of the Soviet Union in a satellite state than an administrative liaison office within the United Kingdom.” Its staff reported only to London and “spent most of their time plying their basic trade of snooping and spooking”.
Ramsay was a close-up observer of the perfidious behaviour of the Heath Government towards Faulkner, personally and politically. “‘The rumours of direct rule?’ said Heath. ‘I’ve told you, Brian, we are in this together, however long it takes.’ With that, he put his arm around Faulkner’s shoulder in friendly, man-to-man fashion. (Thankfully, he spared us the kiss.)”
It is that experience of British establishment attitudes to the North and specifically to unionists which, filtered through high-level involvement in EU affairs, appears to have prompted Ramsay’s plea to unionism to find a new context in Europe for its future.
He sees Ulster Scots as the key to acceptance of unionists among the ‘European peoples’. From a linguistic point of view, he’s sharply sceptical of Lord Laird’s dialectical project. But, he points out, Ulster Scots is already accepted by the EU, along with Irish, as a ‘lesser-used language’, a factor which he suggests could hugely strengthen the credentials of unionists as an authentic ethnic group.
True, he concedes, the concept of Ulster Scots is by no means coextensive with unionism. Many who identify themselves as unionist are not, on any definition, Ulster Scots. But “literally no ethnic group is ‘pure’... Statistically, the match between ‘Ulster Scots’ and ‘unionists’ is as good as any ethno-political group in Europe...
“To me, the most important aspect of the development of the Ulster Scots identity is that it would take (unionism) out of the internationally damaging context of religious division, into one which is not only understandable, but is even fashionably in harmony with the zeitgeist of today’s European Union.”
Fashionable — whatever about harmony and the zeitgeist —would be new territory for unionism. But, considering the dismal discourse evident in the dreary opening exchanges of the European election campaign, its friends might agree that the shock of the new would do it no harm.
Ramsay’s prescription won’t be seen as a remedy for the ills of the North by those of us who want to shift the axis of local politics away altogether from communal concerns and who, anyway, take a sceptical view of EU beneficence. But he has envisioned a way of locating unionism in a context in which it would neither be threatened nor threatening, which has to be an advance. This could be an idea whose time is about to come.
The other attraction of the book is that it’s a terrific read. Ramsay has a wicked way with words and a cute eye for the telling anecdote. Dinner at the home of Army GOC Sir David House, senior officers and high MoD officials in dicky-bowed attendance, with wives: “The evening was unexceptional until the moment Lady House and the ladies ‘withdrew’, at which point Sir David flung open the French windows and led out the male guests to join him in a ritual urination over a giant rhododendron bush at the bottom of the garden. This was all performed with public schoolboy jollity.”
Right enough, what group of any colouration or provenance would want to be lorded over by the likes of that?
Ringside Seats by Robert Ramsay, Irish Academic Press, £19.95
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Terry,
If, after receiving this missive, you are thinking, Michael is smoking some wacky tobacky and trolling the internet for subjects of Irish interest, you are correct. And, I am thoroughly enjoying it.
Michael
Posted by Michael Fahey | 13.06.09, 23:56 GMT
Quote: "i am not of irish nationality because, yes you guessed it! i am not from the republic of ireland."
Silly or perhaps naïve comment, but perhaps reflective of the Loyalist view....being Irish has nothing to do with "born in the Republic" as you say....the Republic has only existed since 1948....so to you, Irish people have been around only since the past 61 years? Ok, back to school...
Leslie J, Derry, Ireland
Posted by Leslie | 20.05.09, 13:00 GMT
why cant these people just accept that they are Irish and join the rest of us in doing so?
Posted by sean mcgovern | 04.05.09, 09:35 GMT
Warming to my theme after reading Slugger comments..
A ethnic minority character within Europe for unionists doesn't fit NI.
1 Regions like Catalonia are ethnically pretty homogeneous, NI is not. So how could Unionists operate as a fully separate community? This formulation would seriously impair drivers for both sides to work together - which , crab-like they probably are doing. The Ramsey thesis might just have made more sense with the old 70:30 ratio - although even then I doubt if it would work.
2. Separate ethnicity tends to lead to separate institutions and added expense. Is that what we need now?
3. In the EU, you have to belong to some nationality, however plural and supra-national you aspire to be. Which other than British is possible, as Ramsey doesn’t envisage this European category for unionists as an immediate prelude to Irish Unity?
The best option is the one we’ve reached, if we work at it.
Posted by Brian Walker | 01.05.09, 20:57 GMT
This reminds me of the views of another civil servant Chester Duggan (1887-1969). He joined the civil service in Dublin Castle after graduating from Trinity College and opted to go North on partition to serve in the new northern administration. He was I believe no 2 in the civil service in the 1930s and 40s. On retirement to Dublin he wrote a series of articles in 1950 in the Irish Times conerning Northern Ireland and in I think November 1953 a week long series of articles exporing the practicalities of any new north/south arrangement. He seemed to suggest an Ulster of significant autonomy within a new Ireland, interesting articles. Two of his brothers were killed in Gallopoli. He also wrote an unpublished memoir of his times in Dublin Castle.
Posted by Pat Crowley | 01.05.09, 16:41 GMT
ive never really got what older people are on about when they talk of 'unionism'. they seem to be talking about some enormous 'thing' or some kind of philosophy that governs a persons views on everything in life. the same is true for people who go on about irish nationalism and 'being nationaist'. to me its just a quick answer to a question of do you prefer being part of the UK or would you prefer to be part of the ROI. a 2 minute conversation with anyone asking the question. all people in NI are the same in general. as with people anywhere, they have a wide range of views on all sorts of subjects.
being from northern ireland i am from the UK and therefore of british nationality. i am irish because i am from ireland and specificly northern irish because i am from northern ireland. i am not of irish nationality because, yes you guessed it! i am not from the republic of ireland. its all simple basic stuff. why people in NI get worked up about unionism and nationalism is beyond me.
Posted by eranu | 01.05.09, 15:46 GMT
The theme tune of this book:
"I felt like a Brit till I met you.
No longer a Toff I reject you.
But seething with wrath
With my new cap of "clawth"
I'll "ethnically " screw you!
************************
A NEW way to do the Double:
"Put on you cloth hat and Dance!"
***************************
If your Ulster accent gets laughed at;
laugh all the way to the bank,
make a career out of it
*********************************
We gave the USA 15 Presidents. Give us a hand-out
And we'll dress up and let you all hear our hill-billy accents;
And teach our children in really Ethnic Institutions
************************************
There is no need to think like a "cloth head" Dr Ramsay.
Ask for at least six Ulster voices in the Dail Senate to be nominated from our Assembly?
University graduates have them; why not everone?
It's just down the road.
And they laugh at our jokes.
And don't think it hilarious to pee outside our fron doors.
Who needs more nettles?
Posted by Just William | 01.05.09, 05:29 GMT
Like other distinguished civil servants who served in the last days of the old Stormont, Robert Ramsey seems not to have got over the shock of Direct Rule, even though few of them were uncritical admirers of the old regime. They lost control of the rules of the game and never regained it. But who can deny that Faulkner's "betrayal" wasn’t necessary? The Ulster Scots thing is surely a blind alley which over-emphasises separation from Irishness. Modern nationalism though, is proving durable and seems flexible enough to accommodate itself to a diverse society. If anything it has become even more robust in the recession. It will be a very long time before a European identity overshadows it. Despite what Ramsey seems to be saying, Unionists should make a warm and comfortable home in the present settlement. What’s wrong with “British and Irish” and therefore also European?.” It’s a great improvement on the sort of unionism Robert Ramsey served impeccably nearly 40 years ago.
Posted by Brian Walker | 30.04.09, 16:42 GMT