The 4 • Spec ator Ireland: can there be peace?
It is easy to forecast the drift of Ireland into civil war, and difficult to envisage a hopeful future for either north or south. Everything seems done too late, and only done at all when action becomes less dangerous than inaction. Politicians are led by events; and events are made by men whose minds are ridden with myths, whose political passion is hate, and who love the gun, the bomb and the sacrificial spilling of blood.
Certainly, it strikes people in England that Ireland will never again be pacified by British arms. Only a handful of fools can and do believe that the British army will be able to restore any kind of permanent peace in Ulster. If and when peace comes to Ulster, it will not be lasting unless it comes to the rest of Ireland; and the rest of Ireland will enjoy no lasting peace as long as Ulster is at war with itself. It is very unlikely indeed that any Irish solution will endure which involves the domination of one Irish community by another. The Protestants can no longer expect to subjugate the Catholics in Ulster; nor can the Catholics of Ireland expect to subjugate the Protestants of the north. The British will not, and neither Irish community can, deploy sufficient force to cow the dissenting Irish into abject surrender. The Irish question is not one which can ever be settled by conquest and by force of arms. Although civil war may come, although the endemic disease which corrupts the entire body _of Ireland now erupts in hectic pustules in the south as well as in the north, although few may see a hope of cure and no man be sure that he knows the remedy, we may still be certain of two things. These are, that sooner or later a settled peace will come, even if it needs the utter exhaustion that follows bloody civil war to bring it about; and that, sooner or later, British troops will leave, whether they leave in anger and letting the Irish stew in their own purulent juices or whether' they leave with Irish thanks an Ireland which has come or been brought to its senses.
The British Government has several grounds for seeking, at least as strenuously as any Dublin government or any Ulster assembly, a lasting solution. Ireland threatens British security. This island Rould catch the virulent Irish pox. The use of British troops in Ulster weakens and potentially subverts Britain. Britain subverts Ulster; and Britain also sustains the Republic. The Irish mess is a blot on the entire British isles. Although parallels with the American involvement in Vietnam are usually facile and misguided, that the Irish disease could, in time, corrupt the British body politic in much the way that Vietnam has corrupted the American, cannot be discounted. It is fortunate hat, so far, British public opinion has chosen not to concern itself overmuch with its Irish problem. Both the Labour and the Conservative Party have, sensibly, flinched away from any policy or attitude which would cause a breach in the existing bipartisan approach. This is partry because both parties sealise that " there, but for the grace of God, go we "; partly because both genuinely are agreed that any solution will be the right solution; partly because the desire to find a solution is greater than the desire to make party capital or to strike partisan attitudes; and partly because both parties are deeply frightened that Ireland might again provide the issue which divides them and the country. There is no dis position in this country to take sides on the Irish question. The only Irish disposition that exists here is to be shot of the problem entirely; and although that disposition, which expresses itself in the cry " bring the troops back," is not yet weighty and is fortunately very far from finding any party political voice and backing, it is bound to become increasingly powerful.
Mr Heath seems to have made it brutally clear, when he was in Ulster, that the man who pays the piper will still call the tune, whatever new representative institutions are devised for • the province. This is as it should be. Control of Ulster must ramain, for a considerable time being, in Whitehall; and it must never again be allowed to pass into the hands of another Stormont, or by whatever other name a representative assembly of Ulster be called. If Ulster is to have a greater degree of effective autonomy than, say, a Riding of Yorkshire, its people and its poliqcians (and its clerics) must realise that it can only do so within an Irish, and outside a British, context. Britain cannot again afford an Ulster Prime Minister and an Ulster Parliament and an Ulster Government; and if Presbyterian Ulster really wants these things, these trappings, then it must steel itself either to go it alone (which is nonsense) or to come to terms with the south (which is the only kind of sense there is).
Although Ireland may have its civil war before it comes to its senses, there is no good reason for acting as if the gloomiest prognosis were the only possible one. Both the British and the Irish Governments are acting as if the worst will not happen, and they are right to do so. Criticism of both Governments rests, substantially, on the ground that what they do is done too timorously and too late. It would be welcome if either. Government were to demonstrate its willingness to act before, rather than after the event. It would have been better had the British Government determined upon Direct Rule sooner rather than later. Likewise, it would have been better had the Irish Government acted against the IRA a few months ago rather than now. But, the decisions themselves have been both correct and courageous. We therefore welcome and applaud Mr Jack Lynch's decisions of the past few days.
It was high time that Sean MacStiofain — or John Stephenson, as the Englishman who used to lead the Provisional wing of the IRA was christened — was imprisoned. Each day that he was at liberty was an indication of Dublin's weakness and of the IRA's strength, and a demonstration that violence paid. Mr Heath has frequently demanded that Mr Lynch match his wordy determination to deal with the IRA with action. Too late, but better late than never, the Irish Prime Minister has obliged, locking up the fasting MacStiof ain, facing the rioting, IRA, and now producing the Draconic law under which a Chiel Superintendent's word is enough to put a man inside. It Is odd, on the face of it, that the Irish Government should introduce anti-IRA laws which would never pass the scrutiny of the House of Commons; but, given the nature of the threat which the IRA poses, no one can argue that the law does not match the intended crime.
When Mr Rory O'Brady says, about the Irish Government's "brutal treatment of a dying man" (Sean MacStiofain) that "This, 'together with the new laws Lynch is bringing against us, means the South will soon be experiencing what Northern Ireland has gone through in recent years," it is clear that he is threatening Ireland with civil war. O'Brady's words are those of a thug; his sentiments are those of a thug; his hopes are those of a thug; his policies are those of a thug. Were this country really oppressing Ireland with a foreign rule from which the likes of O'Brady were seeking to free his land, then possibly his attitude and his activities and policies were justifiable. But there is no oppression of this kind. The oppressors of Ireland are the gunmen of O'Brady and MacStiofain and their ilk. They are the maddened men who bring terror to harmless streets; they are the brutal men whose knock on doors terrorise at night; theirs are the followers who deprave and corrupt Ireland. It is easy enough to regard the O'Bradys and the MacStiofains as heroes and potential maiityrs; but it is better, it is gentler and more becoming, to regard them as traitors to their own, and 'as criminals in their own right. They claim the right to kill: they are, therefore, hooligans and thugs. There is nothing heroic about them except their wish for death. They lack nobility; and it is unfortunately characteristic of the Roman church in Ireland that its 'bishops have tumbled over themselves to see MacStiofain and Ito comfort him in his present travail. The Irish Christians have proved, time and again, that it is foolish to expect help or guidance from them, whether their sectarian inclination is towards Knox and Geneva or the Pope and Rome. The spectacle of two Irish archbishops visiting MacStiofain is singularly unedifying; had Rabbis visited Auschwitz to commiserate with the head gasman, there would 'have been an apt parallel. But the Jew's of Germany had better taste then than the Bishops of Ireland have now. The Jews kept away from the thugs. The Irish Government knows more of Ireland than do the Irish archbishops; and Jack Lyncn has a more effective respect for Ireland and Irish life than have those who seek, by publicly comforting MacStiofain, to support O'Brady and the thugs of the IRA.
Were the British and the Irish Prime Ministers to reach effective agreement between themselves and were they then to act knowing that they knew and understood each other's minds then there would be some hope — however slight — of finding a solution to the Irish problem. It may be that some such understanding has been arrived at. The probability, however, is that Mr Heath still regards his European policy as his most important objective; and if this is so, then regrettably it must be presumed that many more bombs will explode across the Irish sea before a British government treats the Irish situation as overwhelmingly its most urgent and grave problem. It is extremely odd that any British government should treat — and be politically able and allowed to treat — the collapse of law and order in Ulster with such cavalier disrespect as has this Government. The explanation can only be that the British Government thinks that the British public is not bothered about Ulster. Certainly, the public does not want to be bothered about Ulster. But the only way it will cease to be bothered is the way of a solution. And the only way of a solution, after the strong actions of Jack Lynch are over and done with, is — as the present British Government ptivately knows and privately accepts — the way of unification. That way has to be publicly recognised and acknowledged. There is only one other way, and that is the way of civil war, the way of racial and of sectarian division. Civil war may well be unavoidable; but one thing is clear, and this is that if it is to be avoided (and surely it is best 'that it should be avoided), then it will be avoided as a consequence of the London and Dublin governments agreeing to destroy the IRA. Dublin can only do this if London accepts that Irish unification will, at some 'time in the future, Come about. Mr Lynch now acts. It is up to Mr Heath to support him.
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