Flag Ireland Northern

What's Left Of The Flag:

As a young girl I would sit on my father's lap and listen to tales of my people, the Irish. He would tell me the history of my people, their culture, their loves, and their hates. Most of all he would tell me of their brd, their pride. Now Irish Pride is a force of nature in itself. Irish pride was the cause of the uprising on Easter Monday, 1916 when the Volunteers seized the Post Office on O'Connell Street in Dublin to try and gain some freedom from the oppression of Britain and become a united Ireland once more, but more often than not pride has been the downfall of the Irish. It is because of this pride and stubbornness that the Irish in Northern Ireland are at a crux pas and unable to come to a common ground about their roles and national identity in Ireland. I will admit that it is hard for me, being raised an Irish Catholic, to see the view point of the Ulster Unionists Party. Due to the nature of this article it is very difficult for me to write without an unbiased tone when I see such unneeded hatred towards one another due to your religion and knowing that I would be a minority because I am Irish Catholic.

My fellow Irishmen and women, it has come to the attention of this neutral party that there will be no peace in Northern Ireland until both sides come together, put their pride aside, and met each plausible need. I say need, because peace in Ireland is needed and crucial for all Irish, not just those in Northern Ireland. Ireland herself is the most important person involved with these negotiations, ire and her children. We do not want the future generations of ire, both Catholic and Protestant, to live with this legacy of hate. Hate of each other and hate of ire cause you to take the lives of her sons and daughters with each brutal attack. It is true that the Irish Catholics have been under the thumb of British rule for so long that hegemony is widely see throughout Northern Ireland, this should be the first thing to change. The Irish in the North and the South need to band together under one flag. We need to focus not upon the past and if your family came during the time of the Tuatha De Danann or the Ulster Plantation, but on the fact that we are all Irish. Is D'irinn Me, I am of Ireland, should be the cry heard though the streets of a United Ireland.

While preparing for this negotiation I have taken a look the two main parties involved Sinn Fin and the Ulster Unionist Party. In visiting their respective web sites and have seen a vast difference in each party's plans for the future. Researching the Sinn Fin site I can see that they have given much thought to the future of ire and her children. "Political freedom is nothing if it does not embrace political, economic, social, cultural, and human rights. Parity of esteem, equality of treatment and full human rights must be guaranteed for all." (Sinnfein) The Irish Catholics want "equal rights for all; democracy -- making it representative, accountable and responsive to people's needs; actively opposing discrimination; children's rights; people with disabilities reaching their potential; public services, housing, health care and education; the right to work - employment and trade union rights; natural resources and the environment; justice, the judiciary, policing and public safety; Ireland's role, rights and responsibilities internationally." (Sinnfein)

After reviewing the web site for the Ulster Unionist Party I see that all they truly care about is maintaining their British roots. They do not have an outlined plan of their wants and needs; all they focus upon is their "British" nationality. "Ulster Unionists will ensure Northern Ireland remains British, an integral part of the United Kingdom. For us, Britishness is a living, organic relationship with our fellow citizens in the rest of the United Kingdom. We intend to see Northern Ireland fully involved in all aspects of the national life of the United Kingdom." (UUP) The Irish Protestants want "devolved government for Northern Ireland - just like our fellow British citizens in Scotland and Wales. Devolution strengthens the Union, as it means Northern Ireland being governed in the same fashion as other regions in the UK. We have opposed attempts to restrict the voting rights of Northern Ireland, Scottish and Welsh MPs, as we value Westminster as the Parliament for the whole of the United Kingdom." (UUP)

The problems on both sides have escalated due to a hate filled past that neither side is willing to forget. In 1541 Henry VIII of England forced the Irish Parliament to declare him king of Ireland. "When Henry broke with the Catholic Church, he instigated the Protestant Reformation which would eventually set the deeply Catholic Irish on a collision course with the zealously Protestant English. What followed was, at first, a gradual replacement of Anglo-Irish politicians, landowners and clergy with those more 'sympathetic' to the Crown." (Rootsweb) This replacement of well known and well liked Catholics started a chain of events that is still felt today in all of Ireland. "Thus began four centuries of despoliation, oppression, and mass displacement of the Irish people by the English that formed the heritage of hate which still causes emotional resentment in even usually calm and moderate Irishmen everywhere today." (O'Ballance: 4)

As a mediator I propose the following: create one national identity of Ireland-a hon ire dom; focus upon integration of all Irish, Catholic and Protestant in housing, school, and jobs; create a bi-partisan government, starting at the local levels and continue upwards until all of Ireland is bi-partisan; allow the Irish Protestants who wish to remain loyal to the British crown to leave Ireland and establish a program for new housing and jobs for these 'refugees' in Britain; harsher punishments for militant groups on both sides and the dismantling of these terrorist organizations; and change the school curriculum to include a revised history of Ireland.

We need to modify this current history of Ireland in how it is portrayed and how it is taught in the schools in both Ireland and the rest of the world. Irish history needs to reflect not the split between the Catholics and Protestants, but the strengths that came from a united Ireland of old. "As taught in the South, Irish history has a tended to portray Irish revolutionary movements as occurring in cycles which always ended in disaster until the triumphant self-immolation of the 1916 leaders, whose sacrifice and courageous example put new heart into the Irish people, and gave rise to an independence movement from which came liberation and prosperity." (Coogan: 2)

Until both sides come together and see that they are of one nation, Ireland, then these problems will never be solved. We need to focus upon one national identity of being Irish. Irish everywhere should look at the flag and remember what the colors stand for, that the White, Orange, and Green represent both Catholic and Protestant and the peace that is sought by both sides. We need to change the facts that the Irish Catholics feel as if they do not belong in their own country of Ireland and the Irish Protestants are trying to hold onto their British ancestry rather than take part in their Irish nationalism. "They are sharply divided into two distinct groups, the Catholics and the non-Catholics, and each wants something different. The non-Catholics, who are two-thirds the majority, want to retain their link with the British Crown and to remain part of the United Kingdom." (O'Ballance:259)

The only way that Sinn Fin and the rest of Catholic Ireland will obtain their wants and needs is through patience. Long passed are the glory days of the IRA and their more violent ways of getting the point across. "In other words the IRA was causing greater damage to those it was supposed to be defending" (Elliott: 478) Though it was the stories of my kinsman, Ernie O'Malley "full time IRA activist under the direction of Richard Mulcahy, IRA Chief of Staff from 1918." (Mayo Sinn Fin) and many other members of the IRA that I listened to as a young girl learning what it meant to be an Irish Catholic, I now have seen that there is a way through peace. It will be a long and weary road, but if the Irish are one thing it is stubborn and knowing my people as I do we will not rest until there is a haon ire dom, one Ireland. Until that day I will walk away me boys and ask that you raise what's left of the flag for me.

Sources

Coogan, Tim Pat. The IRA. New York: Praeger, 1970

Elliott, Marianne. The Catholics of Ulster. New York: Basic, 2001

Mayo Sinn Fin. 25 May 2005 Sinn Fin Mhaigheo

< http://www.sinnfeinmayo.com/O%20Malley.htm> O'Ballance, Edgar. Terror in Ireland. Novato: Presidio, 1981

Walsh, Dennis. Rootsweb. 2005. 25 May 2005.

< http://www.rootsweb.com/~irlkik/> Ireland. Sinn Fin. Sinnfein. 02 June 2005.

< http://www.sinnfein.ie/> Northern Ireland. Ulster Unionist Party. UUP 02 June 2005