Thoughts on Saint Patrick's Day

Another year, another Saint Patrick's Day. The recent elections in Northern Ireland represented the point at which Irish Nationalism finally died in Ireland (although it retains a following in the Diaspora, but has had next to none in the Republic for donkey's years now) and the "Never, Never, Never" school of Unionist reaction against it duly died at the same time. For, in relation either to support for the Police or to the Saint Andrews Agreement, no rejectionist candidate on either side was elected; indeed, I believe it is correct to say that none even made it past the first round.

The main issue seemed to be water rates. And why not? But none of the existing parties in Northern Ireland is suitable for contesting an election about bread-and-butter politics of that kind: each exists purely to fight a certain corner in a constitutional dispute which no longer obtains. If elections are going to be fought over things like water rates, then the correct parties to fight them must be those which will come to replace the dying Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.