When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

The BBC could not even bring itself to broadcast the actual vote live, but it looks as if Gerry Adams really is now a politician after all, describing as the latest stage in "the struggle", and such like, the decision of Sinn Féin to accept the constitutional arrangements in Ireland, just as the equally anti-partitionist Loyal Irish Union and Orange Order have done, and to become practically nothing more than a vehicle for an arguably ridiculous, but undoubtedly harmless, version of Gaelic-Irishness.

In the same way, the Loyal Irish Union is now practically nothing more than a vehicle for an arguably ridiculous, but undoubtedly harmless, version of Anglo-Irishness, while the Orange Order is rapidly becoming in Northern Ireland (as, of course, it has long been in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal) practically nothing more than a vehicle for an arguably ridiculous, but undoubtedly harmless, version of Scots-Irishness.

That is the category of organisation that Sinn Féin has now decided to join. Of course, certain rhetoric will still be expected on certain occasions. But, beyond the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe, no one at all sincerely believes that there is ever actually going to be a thirty-two county Republic, any more than anyone seriously believes that the twenty-six counties are ever going to be re-incorporated into the United Kingdom. For good or ill, neither of these things is ever going to happen, simply as a matter of fact.

All of which makes the integrationist case unanswerable. The Loyal Irish Union does not contest elections. The Orange Order, as such, does not do so, and is busily disentangling itself from the Ulster Unionist Party. And there is no longer any reason for Sinn Féin to do so, either. The British political parties must now organise in Northern Ireland, firmly committed to encouraging the celebration of all three of the Anglo-Irish, Scots-Irish and Gaelic-Irish cultures within the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland’s membership of which (together with the legitimacy of the Irish Republic as presently constituted) has now been accepted, in everything other than the most nominal sense, even by Sinn Féin.