I know some people don’t like it when I get political. However, when you give your blog the tag-line ‘an Irish Voice in the Blog Sphere’ you sometimes have to take time to reflect on events in Ireland, even if they are political. It’s been almost a year and half since I last shared my views on the situation in Northern Ireland on this blog and back then I felt that the Unionists were being let down terribly by their leaders. Since then there has been a lot more movement from the IRA. They have basically ceased to exist and their political wing has now agreed to support law and order in Northern Ireland by backing the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). At the same time the Unionists are refusing to accept a report by the police ombudsman proving what we all knew already, that there was serious corruption within the old Northern Irish Police Force and that they colluded with Unionists. Basically, Unionists continue to live in a revisionist past while the republicans are looking to a brave new future for Northern Ireland.

[tags]Northern Ireland[/tags]

Rather controversially I would argue that the Unionists won the war in Norther Ireland. Their aim during the war was to end the violence, the Republican’s aim was to get a United Ireland. There is peace, but there is no United Ireland, so, the Unionists won the war. However, since then they have done an astoundingly good job at loosing the peace. Despite having won literally each and every one of their key demands they still can’t bring themselves to utter a positive word. The IRA have stated that the war is over, their weapons really have been destroyed, and an international monitoring commission has repeatedly confirmed that they have genuinely disbanded. And, now, as of yesterday, the IRA’s political wing voted overwhelmingly to take part in policing in Northern Ireland. All these things have happened and still the Unionists say ‘NO’ to power sharing. Twenty or even ten years ago no one would have imagined a day when the Unionists would be so isolated. Not even the British Prime Minister has their backs anymore. The world as a whole sees them as the problem while the former terrorists are seen as the courageous peace makers!

How could that happen? How can you get your peace, win all your demands, and still loose? In my mind it all comes down to the dramatic difference in the mindset of the leaders of the two communities. The Republicans under the leadership of Gerry Adams are looking to the future. Their focus is on building a better tomorrow for Northern Ireland. In Adams’ own words “the war is over, we have to start building the peace”. By contrast Unionist leaders have their collective heads in the sand and are pretending that nothing has changed, that momentous events are not happening around them. The Unionist leaders seem to have chained themselves to the past and appear unable to lead their people into the future. They have said ‘NO’ for so long and entrenched themselves so deeply in their old attitudes and ways that they are unable to look towards a tomorrow where Northern Ireland is governed by Northern-Irish people and where both communities despite not liking each other can work together for the common good of all citizens. A year and a half on I still feel sorry for Unionists, they have no leaders, just relics from an old era that is over and gone. Lost has changed in Northern Ireland but some things have sadly stayed the same.