I move:—
Seanad Éireann,
SOLEMNLY REASSERTING the indefeasible right of the Irish nation to the unity and integrity of the national territory,
REAFFIRMING the sovereign right of the people of Ireland to choose its own form of Government and, through its democratic institutions, to decide all questions of national policy, free from outside interference,
REPUDIATING the claim of the British Parliament to enact legislation affecting Ireland's territorial integrity in violation of those rights, and
PLEDGING the determination of the Irish people to continue the struggle against the unjust and unnatural partition of our country until it is brought to a successful conclusion;
PLACES ON RECORD its indignant protest against the introduction in the British Parliament of legislation purporting to endorse and continue the existing partition of Ireland, and
CALLS UPON the British Government and people to end the present occupation of our six north-eastern counties, and thereby enable the unity of Ireland to be restored and the age-long difference between the two nations brought to an end.
The terms of the motion which I have the honour to propose seem to an Irishman to be very clear and very simple. A great deal was said yesterday in the other House about the political aspect of this problem but it might be well to remark that there are other aspects too. It is true that no State for any part of Ireland, in the modern sense, emerged until 27 years ago—1922—but it is also true that there has been for a great many years, perhaps for a couple of thousand years, in this island population with a keen sense of Irishmans; a population not necessarily of the same race but composed of people who felt that Ireland was their country, that they were Irish —people who were attracted by what has sometimes been called "the personality of Ireland". Various races contributed to that position—Gaels, Norwegians, Normans, Welsh, English, Scots, even French Huguenots and Palatine Germans. All made their contribution to Ireland and all showed that sense of unity and that sense of being Irish. That is one of the first facts that has to be taken into consideration when we discuss this motion. It deals with the difference between the nation and the State and the fact that the nation comes before the State in point of time. There is, in Irish literature, a very great deal of the most beautiful poetry dealing entirely with deóruíocht, or exile. As far back as the sixth century there is the story of Colmcille, the saint who evangelised Scotland and who founded schools in Scotland as well. Saint Colmcille was exiled from Ireland —not from Derry, the city which bears his name, but from Ireland. In all our poems and in all the literature and folklore of our country up to the present moment this country has always been regarded as an island which included Antrim and Down as well as Cork and Kerry. As a matter of fact, that particular attraction of Ireland, that particular capacity of Ireland to attract people and to hold people and to make them Irish, had many manifestations. In the County Down, in the early part of the 19th century, a Presbyterian Minister could not take up a living unless he were able to preach to his flock in the Irish language. That applied to other religions too.
I want to suggest that that Irishness is a natural historical growth. It is something of very great strength and something which no Act of Parliament of Great Britain or anywhere else can destroy or arrest. It is evident everywhere, particularly in the North, because even the Belfast Orangeman is incurably Irish and the notion that he can be made British by any form of propaganda is simply foolish. Nobody is clearer upon that than himself. When I speak of this Irishness which is so remarkable in this country with its natural boundaries, I do not mean that I desire accomplishment here, or that there ever was an accomplishment here, of complete uniformity, unity or sameness racially. I do not speak for racialism at all. I believe that variety of population, variety of culture and variety of outlook lead to strength in a nation just as variety in industry and agriculture leads to economic strength. This Irish nation of which we speak is something of natural and historic growth. Northern Ireland as an area is something brought about by the British, an entirely artificial thing created by the British Parliament for its own purposes and, it is well I think to observe, exclusively by British votes. It has no roots in history, geography or economics. It has no natural boundaries, either river or mountain. It has no homogeneous population. In many areas, as has been said over and over again, there are nationalist majorities, but even in the place where there is the most homogeneous Partitionist population, in Belfast City and its surroundings, there is still a strong, vocal, dissatisfied minority of one-third of the people. Neither from the point of view of history nor from the point of view of present population, therefore, is there anything but artificiality in that carefully selected area. The boundary deprives a countryside of its natural markets and deprives country towns of their natural customers.
Both the central and local government in Northern Ireland have had many charges made against them, charges of bigotry, charges of favouritism on political grounds, charges that membership of the Orange Order is more important if you want a house or a job than service in the British Army or wounds honourably received in war in the service of the King. Our objection to the existence in this country of another State governed ultimately from Great Britain does not depend on the nature of that Government. If it were flawless and without reproach our objection would still subsist. It is also well to remember that the differences between us are not differences as to loyalty to the Crown. I can remember the time when a Home Rule Bill was going to be accepted here with enthusiasm by a great number of people and with the acquiescence of the vast majority of the remainder and which contained a full-blooded Oath of Allegiance to the Crown and no provision for an Irish Army or an Irish voice in foreign affairs. It was to fight that particular Bill and to prevent the Irish people from accepting it that arms were brought into Ireland by the Orangemen, and Great Britain observed towards those arms brought in by Orangemen a very benevolent neutrality, a neutrality for which they have since paid a very heavy price indeed. We hear of other objections to unity; objections based on genuine fear. Surely these fears could be met by the repeated declarations of the minority in this State and the record of Government in this country since 1922 where different Governments of widely different points of view have agreed, not only in theory but in practice, to accommodate themselves to people who, for cultural, historical and religious reasons, are in disagreement with the majority.
We in this country have every reason to desire that Great Britain should be strong. There are ties of blood between us and I suppose that even blood spilt between nations gives certain ties. Recently we have had messages from the King, from the Prime Minister of the British Government and from the Prime Minister of other States in the British Commonwealth and we believed that our friendship was being accepted. Now, however, this Bill which is being brought into the British Parliament seems to shatter that particular illusion.
But there is no necessity for us to be excited about British Acts of Parliament. The British Statute Book is cluttered up with Acts of various kinds against the Irish people. There have been Acts of the British Parliament and of the Parliament in Ireland, misnamed the Irish Parliament, against the Irish language, Irish customs, Irish law, the Irish way of wearing clothes, the Irish way of wearing one's hair and the Irish way of riding horses. These Acts have been put into operation, or an endeavour has been made to put these Acts into operation, with every possible weapon at the disposal of a Government and a State. They have all now lapsed into being musty, historical documents, into something, as has been aptly said, for Englishmen to remember and for Irishmen to forget. This Act will pass into the same sphere of mustiness and of history and the Irish people will survive it.
We sometimes hear it said that there is a special peculiarity about Irishmen: they ask for something nobody else wants. They are strange, odd, or perhaps they have a double dose of original sin. We ask no more for ourselves in this island than what the people of Great Britain have for themselves politically in their island, something they have and enjoy, something they have so often and so recently heroically defended. We feel that there is nothing strange in asking for that. The Irish sense of unity, Irish persistence and Irish prayer will surely survive this Act of the British Parliament.
The Act itself purports to give certain guarantees to some of our people in the North. One would imagine, if a guarantee were to be asked for, that it would be asked for and given by us, not by the British. If it were given by us it would last longer and be more valuable than a guarantee given by the British because this guarantee contained in the Ireland Bill is surely illusory and was inserted for a political rather than for a legal purpose. No British Government can guarantee the future. No British Parliament can bind the next. Nobody can be more eloquent and persuasive than a British statesman explaining that he is going back on something that has been passed and guaranteed.
We are not hostile to the British Labour movement or to the Labour Government in Britain. In fact, we are not hostile to any movement or Party there. On the contrary, we are very friendly towards them and recognise that in many ways our fate is bound up with theirs. We want to see Britain strong and we will lend our assistance, the assistance of our people everywhere to that end, but if she persists in pursuing the present course of action with regard to Ireland, that surely cannot happen. I have been at conferences and was received with the greatest courtesy by British Ministers and members of Parliament. But when they were discussing problems concerning the ends of the earth, I always asked myself: are they as ignorant about other places as they are about Dublin because if they are their foreign policy must be a pathetic thing indeed? There is a blindness there with regard to us. The vision of British statesmen pierces to the Eastern world, pierces to the ends of the earth, but Irish problems are hidden by a curtain of ignorance, blindness and ancient injustice.
Nothing would strengthen the cause of Britain in the world or the cause of these islands more than the just solution of Partition or even a movement towards its solution, but this Bill now before the British Parliament seems to go directly contrary to that particular idea.
We could ask a great variety of questions. Great Britain made it her business to declare and fight over five Continents for what they call the recognition of every people's rights to self determination and for the elimination of racial prejudices and religious discrimination. Britain prevented France from going into the Ruhr and from going into the Rhineland. If the Ruhr, why not Fermanagh and if the Rhineland why not Tyrone? England applies one rule to the world and another special rule to Ireland.
We feel that we can face this situation with calm, with discipline and confidence. All of our history teaches us that there is in our people persistence in the idea of the unity of their own country and there is an enormous number of Irishmen with that sense of Irishness beyond the seas to assist us. That makes us confident that no Act of the British Parliament, no matter how it is passed or by whom it is passed, can prevail against us. We need not be anything but disciplined and calm on the subject, and I think we can be confident that in the future, and perhaps the not too distant future, we shall see another British Government and another British Parliament, more enlightened and, we would hope, more powerful than the present British Parliament, regretting and annulling this Act, regretting the haste, the ignorance and the furtive bigotry that seems to me to be behind the Act.
