Bowen And Dillon Globalizers Wet Dream? People's Verdict Manus O'Riordan Philip O'Connor Labour Comment page 15 page 7 back page IRISH POLITICAL REVIEW August 2009 Vol.24, No.8 ISSN 0790-7672 and Northern Star incorporating Workers' Weekly Vol.23 No.8 ISSN 954-5891 Politics And Fantasy North An Bord Snip The Good Friday Agreement has led to the drastic decline of the two Northern Ireland The 'Special Group on Public Service parties which were central to its negotiation, the Ulster Unionist Party and the Social Numbers and Expenditure Programmes' Democratic and Labour Party. The essential futility of the structures put in place by the (aka An Bord Snip Nua), chaired by UCD GFA led to their displacement by the 'extremist' parties, the Democratic Unionist Party economist Colm McCarthy, has produced and Sinn Fein. These parties are now experiencing the futility of it. But there are no other its findings. As an accountant's report in parties. in the offing to displace them—except perhaps Jim Allister's movement of fulfilling the task set it—how to cut a few Unionist dissent, which may well appear as a party at the British Election next year and billion off the costs side of a balance sheet put the wind up the DUP and UUP. in a context where annual expenditure of There is a big difference between the DUP and Sinn Fein as 'extremists' relative to the ¤50bn compares with income of ¤30bn— GFA. The DUP rejected the Agreement, condemned the UUP for supporting it, it is an efficient, competent and thorough campaigned against it in referendums and elections, swore it would never sit in job. It came up with cuts of ¤5.3bn but, Government with Sinn Fein under it, and then, when it had displaced the UUP as the given its methodology, it could have been major unionist party, took its place alongside Sinn Fein in Government. any figure. The premise it chose as its In fact, it did what the UUP had not been required to do. It undertook the office of starting point, the type of savings pro- First Minister to Sinn Fein's Deputy First Minister. Sinn Fein had not been the senior posed, the areas outside its remit—where party of the Catholic community while the UUP was the senior party of the Protestant it suggests further revenue savings can be community so the Deputy First Minister was SDLP. made—and the sacred cows it refuses to 'Extremist' Sinn Fein, by contrast, was enthusiastically pro-Agreement from the start. touch, tell a story however. It had been advocating something like the Agreement long before 1998. For perhaps ten The McCarthy report is a Thatcherite years the war had been kept going, after the prospect of military victory had receded, in wish list in the basic sense that the major order to compel the Government to make an arrangement of this kind. cost savings it proposes are in the area of The SDLP, though it was the major electoral party of the Catholic community for a social spending, while steering clear or third of a century, always had the air of second-best about it. It shot its bolt back in 1971, only tentatively touching on such ele- or 1974 at the latest. It held its majority status, not in antagonism with Sinn Fein, but phants in the room as the ludicrous salary because it was respectable and acceptable to British and Dublin administrations and it and pension privileges which have been was known on its home ground that its rivalry with Sinn Fein was shadow boxing which allowed to accumulate at the top of the posed no threat of communal rupture. public service and judiciary, or the hospital The Ceasefire which prepared the way for the Agreement was experienced in the consultants contract agreed by Mary Catholic community as a Republican victory. Media commentators, who never troubled Harvey in the last year (three times the to understand what Northern Ireland is, and the position in which it placed the Catholic rates earned by their opposite numbers in community, say that that experience was a symptom of delusion. They say that in reality France or Germany). the Provos were defeated. But experience is experience, and the 'reality' that is posited While virtually every social spending continued on page 2 continued on page 6 "Barroso should be a shoo-in for the Some EU Heroes Of The Moment job, principally because no one else has As one of the thousands of broken- emerged as a contender. Across the main BARROSO European political groups he has already down Marxists that now operate across The way the appointment of the next won unanimous backing from his own EU Commission President is being Europe, Barroso is the perfect man for political family, the centre-right European arranged speaks volumes about the Post holding a broken-down post. Barroso tried People's Party (EPP). He has also won and the current state of the EU. Barroso to go it alone once on the completion of support from three Socialist prime has been a good President, i.e., he has Doha negotiations. But Sarkozy slapped ministers: Britain's Gordon Brown, done what he has been told to do by the big him down and he lost all credibility as an Portugal's José Socrates and Spain's José Member States and overruled when he international negotiator. Sarkozy is one of Luis Zapatero. This has torpedoed the shows signs of having an independent those who will now ensure he gets the job candidacy of the one possible rival, view. That is the way a Commission again. Why sack a good butler who knows former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup President must act these days since the his place? Rasmussen. (Irish Times, 16 June). authority of the position was wrecked by And everyone else agrees he should get At the Council meeting in June he got Pat Cox and the Liberals. the job: the support of all 27 Prime Ministers but, continued on page 9 secession. In 1969 it was in the process of rejecting nationalism, disarming the IRA, C O N T E N T S and trying to find a way of waging class Page war under Marxist ideology. Fantasy North. Editorial 1 In mid-August 1969, when the North Politics And An Bord Snip. Editorial 1 was in turmoil for reasons that had nothing Some EU Heroes Of The Moment. Jack Lane 1 to do with Sinn Fein and little to do with nationalism, the leader of that Marxist Readers' Letters: Political Reform And The Irish State. Tim O'Sullivan 3 Republicanism, Cathal Goulding, issued Editorial Digest (Orangefest?; Dolly's Brae; UDA; Sinn Fein) 5 a statement to the press that he had given Bord Snip Report—A Globalizer's Wet Dream. Philip O'Connor 7 marching orders to his Belfast Brigade. Cúpla Snip Eile...... 9 The Loyalist populace in the North had no Conspiracy. Joe Dalton 12 grounds for knowing that he had no Belfast Shorts from the Long Fellow (NAMA; Bail Outs; Wealth Tax; 250m v 1bn; Brigade. At the same time the Taoiseach, Jack Lemass Documentary; Questions & Answers; Role Of Media; Media Prestige 13 Lynch, made a television broadcast in And Is There Jaffa Cakes Still For Tea? Wilson John Haire (poem) 14 which he said he would not stand (idly) by Did Elizabeth Bowen Slander James Dillon As A Fascist? Manus O'Riordan 15 while events in the North ran their course. Es Ahora. Julianne Herlihy (Lisbon II; Shell; UK Arms Sales; Ryan Report) 17 Lynch had an Army of sorts and he moved Granville's Gripes. Seán McGouran 18 it to the Border. His hagiographer, Profes- sor Keogh of Cork University, tells us that Closure Of Foinse? Ted O'Sullivan (report) 18 Lynch had the firm intention of not using Massacre And Other Matters. Desmond Fennell 19 his Army, but of standing by and recognis- Political Stories. Joe Keenan 19 ing the North as British. But the Loyalist populace had no means of knowing that From Judaism To Islam. Eamon Dyas 22 either. What the Taoiseach actually said, Biteback: Judicial Swipes. Tom Sheridan (part 3) 25 combined with what the Chief of Staff of Does It Stack Up? Michael Stack (Law Reform; RTE; Ryan Report) 26 the IRA actually said, helped to confirm IFA Should Invite Palestinians. David Morrison (report) 26 the Loyalist populace in the view that the 'civil rights' conflict within the North— which arose from the internal structure of Labour Comment, edited by Pat Maloney: Northern Ireland—was the Fifth Column People's Verdict of a United Ireland offensive. (back page) Historical events occur in real time on Real Minimum Wage Already Cut By 4% : Manus O'Riordan the basis of what is present at the time. (page 27) The chief external influence present in the Due to pressure of space a number of articles have been held over, including a historical review of the Northern situation in mid-August 1969 formation of Afghanistan by Pat Walsh and John Martin on Racism and Community were the inflammatory speech by the Taoi- seach and the inflammatory press release (to the same general effect) by the Chief of Staff of the IRA. against it is mere transcendentalism, even is decreed to be Anglophobic. Lynch's speech was experienced as when expressed by dissident Republicans That it is Anglophobia is an Article of inflammatory by the Loyalist populace. nurtured by Professor the Lord Bew. Faith. Articles of Faith issued by Rome Therefore it was inflammatory.