A glimpse into the future - the alternative pathway to achieving a united Ireland
By Dr. Richard Martin
I attended the February meeting of Mayo County Council.
I sat in the public gallery with my laptop open taking it all in. The contributions weren’t great to be honest.
Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh came in at one point accompanied by a woman I didn’t recognise. They sat in the public gallery in the row in front. I noticed Rose nodded in ascent as Michael Kilcoyne and Harry Barrett spoke about the housing crisis and dereliction.
Politicians on the left are all on the same wavelength.
Thirty minutes later the two women got up to leave.
As they were leaving Rose beckoned me to come outside. Curious, I followed. She introduced me to her mystery companion.
Emma Shaw from East Belfast. It’s not every day you get to meet a loyalist in Castlebar.
Councillor Gerry Murray joined us and the four of us spoke for 10 minutes or so.
Emma Shaw is the founder and director of the Phoenix Education Centre in East Belfast. It is a non-profit organisation which is focused on tackling educational underachievement and attainment in working class loyalist communities.
Her own journey is inspirational. She left grammar school at 16 with no desire to go to college or university, and so began working in a travel agency. She had her first child at 18 and then worked as a clerical officer in a Belfast hospital.
In her 30s she decided to return to education in Queens University and study politics.
It was a real treat to meet her all be it so briefly. I think it’s powerful that both sides of the divide in the north and the south can engage in dialogue and build friendships. I found her to be an articulate, thoughtful woman with a strong sense of self.
Eventually, the two women disappeared. I think Rose was bringing her on a whistle stop tour of the town and county.
It was Emma Shaw's first time in Castlebar and the west. I hope she returns again. I spoke with Rose later that evening and Rose told me she brought her to the Irish House and the Bungalow the night before. Ah well, I said. She’s old stock now.
The only way forward on this island is dialogue. Irish unity can only come about through dialogue and focusing on what we have in common as opposed to how we differ.
Loyalist communities in the north have been left behind. The DUP and their ilk aren’t interested in young working class kids from loyalist areas going to university and educating themselves and becoming solicitors, accountants and barristers.
That would be the death knell for the DUP.
They want to keep them in their place and use them for votes.
Keeping stirring them up about the big bad SF wolf across the divide and drive them out onto the streets when necessary.
All through the troubles the likes of Paisley and company were happy to incite young working class Protestants to violence and murder.
Funny enough, Paisley and his brethren were never inclined to lift a rifle themselves. They left that to the working class fodder and then ran for cover when they were arrested and imprisoned. The biggest enemy working class loyalism has isn’t the Dublin Government or SF.
It’s the wealthy old money big house unionists who want to preserve the status quo.
Emma Shaw is a bigger threat to the DUP than SF or any republican grouping, as she is getting young Protestants onto the education pathway and encouraging them to think for themselves.
If any person engages in critical thinking it’s virtually impossible to vote and support a party like the DUP, which is obsessed with stopping real progress across all divides.
A united Ireland won’t come from a bullet or a bomb. It will come about as a result of hard work and the building of good relations between people across all divides.
Seeing Rose and Emma together in the council building – and the obvious mutual respect they have for each other - is the way forward. It’s good for the soul too.
Will a united Ireland happen anytime soon? I don’t think so.
The 26 county state has its own troubles. We need to get our own house in order, and by that, start building them. The current political agenda is dominated by the housing crisis, rental crisis and the cost of living. The everyday person in the republic is more focused on these issues than a verse of Sean South.
I want to see partition ended. I believe the island should be all under one roof and governed by a democratic parliament in Dublin.
But, I don’t think it can happen until such a time as the people in the six counties – that vast majority of the people in the six counties – can see that life in the republic is a better proposition than life under rule from Westminster.
We need to have better public services. We have to be able to say to the people across the border that life is better under Dublin rule.
More opportunities, better education and social welfare system. Over the past few decades we have made massive strides and the south has passed the north out in many ways. But we have a bit to go yet.
It will only come about through persuasiveness and dialogue. The road of the armalite reached a dead end many moons ago.
Recently, I watched footage of Gregory Campbell approach our President at a function at the Guildhall in Derry a few weeks ago.
She held her own and didn’t react. He was aggressive, intimidating and needlessly confrontational.
He told her she was ‘in our country’ and blathered on with more inane gibberish.
And the place was Londonderry not Derry.
All it was a shameless attempt to pander to his own base. I’m an uncompromising unionist who will never surrender. It’s exactly what Trump does in America.
Trump plays to the MAGA base with his militant rhetoric, yet when it came to Vietnam War he ran from it like a rat from a stack.
The political playbook of Trump and member of the DUP mirror each other. Exploiting working class communities for their own ends.
Meeting Emma Shaw reminded me that there is an alternate pathway. People can identify as loyalist, working class, and be independent free-thinkers.
She is the future of this island.
I hope we meet her again soon in Castlebar again.
Tá fáilte romhat cuairt a thabhairt orainn am ar bith.