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september 2020 issue 479 50 FORTNIGHT@ politics, arts & culture in northern ireland What future for Northern Ireland? Four Futures by Richard Humphreys, Tom Hadden, Colin Harvey and Hugh Logue; The Economics of NIRexit by Katy Hayward; ‘Others’ identity issues; New normality by Malachi O’Doherty and Covid Monologues x 7 contact us at: [email protected] www.fortnightmagazine.org ean: 978 0141 77628 6 To register for further information on future publications contact us on our website www.fortnightmagazine.org and fill in the form in the Contact section. To contact us on more general editorial issues write to [email protected]. To order and pay for more printed copies of this issue transfer £10 per copy to the Fortnight Publications Ltd account at the the Ulster Bank (sort code 98-00-60, acc. no. 13076431) and enter your postal address at [email protected]. Copies may also be collected or ordered direct from No Alibis, 83 Botanic Avenue, Belfast BT7 1JL; telephone 028 9031 9601; email [email protected]. Contents ortnight @50 Editorial 1 Futures Richard Humphreys: What do we talk about when What future for Northern we talk about a United Ireland? 2 Colin Harvey: Imagining a New Ireland Ireland? f 5 Tom Hadden: Plus ça change …? 8 Hugh Logue: Ireland: a positive conversation 12 Fortnight is back. This new issue is partly to Politics celebrate the 50th anniversary of our first issue but Feargal Cochrane: ‘It’s a long way from Finchley’ 15 also to look forward into the future. Bobby McDonagh: Evolving Irish attitudes 17 When we started in 1970 Northern Ireland was Jamie Pow: More democracy with citizens’ assemblies 19 facing a troubled and uncertain future. Over the next Katy Hayward: Customs, consent and compromise 22 forty years we played a small part in the search for peace and stability. We ceased publication in 2012 Identity when the situation seemed more peaceful and Paul Nolan: The lives of Others 25 settled – and when people stopped buying printed Claire Mitchell: Divided politics – blended lives 27 magazines. Tamilore Awonusi: Can I be more than … 29 Now that we are again facing an uncertain future we Martyn Turner: Nor’n Irish for ever 31 are relaunching the magazine both in an initial printed version and also in a digital format which will Law be free at the point of delivery. The aim is to Brice Dickson: The on-going Bill of Rights debate 33 recreate Fortnight as a forum for diverse Louise Mallinder: What next for dealing with the past 36 contributions on the full range of our political, economic, cultural and artistic lives in a territory Culture caught by history between the British and Irish Malachi O’Doherty: Changed normality 40 nations and states. Andy Pollak: Fortnight – a very short history 44 Arts What future for Fortnight Damian Smyth: Fifty years of contested writing 50 We are planning to develop a platform for Edna Longley; The currency of poetry 54 new and younger voices, both as writers Des O’Rawe: Screen politics 58 and as more digitally savvy editors and Steafán Hanvey: Snaps from a cooler remove 61 publishers, to help preserve and develop Covid Monologues the Fortnight tradition of dispassionate analysis, political debunking, cultural Gina Donnelly: Don’t tell me to smile 65 enjoyment and social irreverence. If you Rose Curry: Rebirth 67 are interested please get in touch. But Alice Malseed: The pandemic is online 69 remember, that also in the Fortnight Anne Devlin: The Daily Leopard 71 tradition, it is likely to be largely unpaid Jane McCarthy: Epistolary at the end of summer 73 but hopefully intellectually and otherwise Rosemary Jenkinson: Kim’s Corona Love 75 rewarding. Sarah Reid: A Toxic Lover 77 Books EDITOR: Tom Hadden LITERARY EDITOR: Anne Devlin Mary Robinson on Kevin Boyle biography 79 Design by Wendy Dunbar, Dunbar Design Malachi O’Doherty on new Troubles thrillers 80 Printed by W&G Baird Ltd, Antrim © Fortnight Publications Ltd 2020 o5rtnight0 f@ What do we talk about when we talk about a United Ireland? Richard Humphreys Richard Humphreys is a a judge of the High Court of Ireland. He writes in a personal and academic capacity. His latest book is Beyond the Border: The Good Friday Agreement and Irish Unity after Brexit (Merrion Press, 2018). Speaking in Downing Street on than it is a repudiation of the idea of a single all- 19th November, 1984, island entity. Margaret Thatcher offered the However, as Mrs Thatcher anticipated, that is out. It is out because the Good Friday Agreement following analysis of what a acknowledges the need for special arrangements for united Ireland might look like: the divided society of the 6 counties, and for those “a unified Ireland was one arrangements to continue indefinitely. Those arrangements include a British dimension in solution. That is out. A second perpetuity in the form of an entitlement to UK solution was confederation of citizenship, as well as entrenched requirements on two states. That is out. A third rights, non-discrimination and parity of esteem, solution was joint authority. which are to apply “whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern That is out.” Ireland”. But Mrs Thatcher got 2 out Power-sharing institutions are also provided for, of 3 right. Not bad by and on balance this can also be seen as a default position into the future unless otherwise agreed. conventional standards. Admittedly there is no explicit provision about what happens to devolution after unity as there is for citizenship and parity of esteem, but the default status of the institutions arises not so much from A unitary state express language as from the general principle of the The traditional default continuation of treaty provisions unless or until idea of a united Ireland is otherwise agreed between the contracting states. that of a unitary state, or The notion of a version of a united Ireland that a single 32-county entity. involves recognition of an entitlement to Britishness Republicans sometimes is a real challenge to armchair nationalism. Do refer derisively to a ‘32 nationalists, particularly Southern nationalists, county Free State’, but that is more a rejection of really have the ‘cultural bandwidth’ to accommodate the social and economic policies of the Irish State the British identity, to use the striking phrase coined 2 FORTNIGHT @ 50 FUTURES by John Wilson Foster? Time will tell, but to sound a lot more sincere if we start to see a bit of nationalism needs to have an honest conversation this up front. Actions speak louder than words, so with itself before it can plausibly talk about Irish the question really is what is nationalism going to unity. do to accommodate the British/ Protestant/ There are grounds for pessimism. If anyone unionist/ loyalist identity now – not just someday. suggests that very modest steps to accommodate the (In that regard, maybe is it worth mentioning that British identity should be considered, they must run the next Commonwealth Games are coming up in the gauntlet of battalions of red-faced Southern 2022 in Birmingham. Something to think about nationalists licking their pencils to fill the letters maybe.) pages with their 26-county brand of patriotic Paddywhackery. Joint authority The Irish Constitution is certainly not fit for A second model for Irish unity is purpose in a 32 county context. It is in many that of joint authority. That is also respects a nationalist document for a nationalist out, at least as a permanent end-state. It is out people. Sure, some of the cold 1930s religiosity has because the Good Friday Agreement rules out all been expunged, but much remains. Its opening such exotic, brainstorming solutions and offers a words, “In the name of the Most Holy Trinity...”, parallel and symmetrical choice between a United and the Catholic-nationalist narrative that Kingdom or a united Ireland based on 50% follows in the Preamble, are culturally +1 vote of the people of Northern Ireland, unintelligible to the modern ear and The Irish subject to parallel consent in the South. emphatically so to the non-nationalist ear. Constitution Parity of esteem means that unionism Even more fundamentally, the right to is certainly is not a superior concept to nationalism, so full political participation under the Constitution is confined to Irish citizens, not fit for there cannot be a convenient rule-change who alone can be members of the purpose in a as soon as unionism gets outvoted. In an Oireachtas. So if a unionist wants to take 32 county alternative historical universe, the time for unionism to advance the merits of joint national political office today, or in a united context. Ireland under the 1937 Constitution, he or authority was at the multi-party talks in she has to thereby become in law an Irish 1996–98. But unionism didn’t have that citizen. That is contrary to the fundamental foresight. Instead it bet the farm on precept of the Good Friday Agreement that permanently staying ahead on the 50%+1 threshold acknowledges the right of everyone in Northern – a bet that looks increasingly misjudged, especially Ireland to be Irish or British or both as they after Brexit. For anyone to suggest this or any other individually decide. Indeed you can’t be exclusively Union-friendly change to the Good Friday British and even be allowed to vote in a referendum Agreement rules of engagement now, or as soon as under the Constitution, let alone hold elective nationalism looks like achieving its objectives under office. So in that and other respects, the 1937 those rules, would be an exercise in intellectual Constitution impedes the very unity it is at pains to dishonesty, the rejection of which will be as champion.
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