Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Dublin Letter: Lynch and the London-IrishAuthor(s): Trevor WestSource: Fortnight, No. 161 (Feb. 3 - 16, 1978), p. 12Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25546529 .

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Lynch and the London-Irish bytrevorwest

Apart from the hint of an amnesty for

political prisoners if peace breaks out, Jack Lynch's remarks in his celebrated RTE interview amplified traditional Fianna Fail policy urging the British Government to disengage from Northern Ireland leading to unity by consent.

Dublin is clearly wary of the trend towards total integration as the tidy solution (and one which is finding favour

with more and more Unionist politi cians). Thus pressure in the opposite direction was to be expected. However at this stage of the game it is not enough.

What becomes clear from the Taoiseach's remarks further on in the in terview is that no-one in Fianna Fail

(haven't they got a redundant think tank somewhere in their organisation?) has

made any attempt to defuse Northern Protestant fears and to quantify what

happens should disengagement take

place.

Lynch's apparent reason for not

publishing a White Paper dealing with the problem is Ms fear of unilaterally showing his government's hand. But one doesn't have to publish White Papers to achieve this objective. A high level study could be made of developing relation

ships between the Republic, Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK (in the

European context) between now and the end of the century by a group of mixed

political and religious persuasions (with even, let's whisper, a few independent

members) which would cause the

Republic to focus more sharply on the difficulties ensuing from any Nl change of status. For far too long there has been

gMb talk in the South of Irish unity with a

corresponding lack of any deep contem

plation of the consequences. Two fellow countrymen who, each in

their own way, did follow up the logic of this position burst into print in the Sun

day heavies after Lynch's speech. Conor Cruise O'Brien who represents Dublin

University on the "Observer** Is a

prophet of doom and has a deep detesta tion of Fianna Fail. His famous outburst in the London "Times" just prior to the election was worth ? seats of the FF

majority. Ifoe "poisoned rhetoric" of his "Observer" leader (besides giving un due pleasure to the English) serves only to harden moderate opinion and reinfor ce prejudice on both sides. Mary Kenny in the "Sunday Times" had the following

words of comfort for Northern readers, "Ulster is", she says, "let's face it, an

extremely unattractive and disagreeable place and the Northern Irish are, on the

whole, an extremely unattractive group of people. They are dour, troublesome and truculent; quarrelsome, bigoted and

rough. Charmlessness is their main characteristic and humourlessness their

middle name. They are devoid of frivol

ity and generosity of spirit. A thoroughly unappealing form of Calvinism governs what might be called, for lack of a better

word, their culture!' Her piece may have intended to include a humourous vein but it turned into the sort of straightforward bigotry we last had from Bernard Levin.

(Maybe they're still good friends.) Ms

Kenny is described in the script as a writer and Irish patriot. She's neither. With such distinguished political com mentators at the Court of St James who needs an ambassador?

Worker Capitalism Meanwhile, back on the ranch, our real fate was being decided by the Employer Labour Conference discussing the more

mundane problems of tax-reliefs and

wage restraint.

Trade Unions, as Hugh Munro has

recently observed, are a grave disap pointment to Marxists for they concen trate on their proper business of

organising a better life for their mem

bers, instead of organising social revolution as the Marxists would like them to do. If the unions were to bring down the capitalist system they would

produce, in doing so, the impoverishment of their members. Naturally they do the^ opposite. Union pension funds are the

largest corporate investors on the US stock exchange! With our present tax system a reduction

in the rate or in the level at which this rate is applied of standard rate of income tax could mean more to workers in real terms than a rise in pay. This must be one of the ideas George Coliey is toying with as he prepares his Budget. Em

ployees in firms must be given a share of the equity which would then give them a

more substantial share in the success of the enterprise,

Harry and Johnny Jack Kyle dropped in from Zambia on

the eve of the Scottish match at Lan sdowne Road to be elevated to the Irish

Sportstars Hall of Fame. Whatever doub ts are harboured about the efficacy of such awards, Kyle is, by common con

sent, Ireland's finest rugby player. In his

gracious accepting speech laced with

quotations from Hemingway, Shaw and

Yeats, he spoke of the tremendous enrichment which had been given to his life by virtue of the fact that he had

played for a side representing the whole of Ireland. A couple of days before, Harry Cavan

had appeared on TV from Buenos Aires in his role as Northern Ireland's

representative on, and Vice-President of, FIFA making the draw for soccer's next World Cup. Harry, if my sporting memory serves me right, played table tennis for a side representing the whole of Ireland. While, the day after, Johnny Giles announced his resignation as team

manager of the Republic of Ireland. Giles had returned to Dublin in the sum mer with his record as one of the out

standing players and managers in British football. He took a, stake in the famous Dublin soccer club, Shamrock

Rovers, which had fallen on lean times and with shrewd judgement and skilfull ball control is leading them back to their

rightful place in Irish (and perhaps European) football. He has had a suc cessful run as manager of the Republic's team considering its very limited resources and some way will have to be found of patching up his problems with the grey men who adminstrate the game

mtheSouth. In fact Harry and Johnny are the giant

figures in our small and regrettably compartmentalised soccer pond. They are the two men in Irish football with sufficient clout to act on Jack Kyle's

Ireland's most expensive morning newspaper wasted no time in pointing out the error of the Observer's Pendennis who called on readers to celebrate Cardinal Conway's birthday last Sunday. What they didn't point out, and for 15 pence one might expect such things, was that the same page of the Observer carried a nice story about the present archbishop of Armagh,

Thomas O'Fiaich. The gist of it was that the Irish government were very

worried about O'Fiaich's call for British withdrawal coming so close after their own. They were worried in case the British government might take them seriously. It has the ring of truth.

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