Northern Ireland at 100

Posted on

Northern Ireland was created on 3 May 1921.

I am reluctant to use the word creation in the context of Northern Ireland right now, when the apparent front runner for leadership of the DUP is a creationists who seems to think the world no more than 6,000 years old, but it is also hard to avoid. Northern Ireland was created out of compromise, and with insufficient thought. The legacy has been tough.

What of today? We need to be as worried as ever about Northern Ireland. It is battered by political division from inside. The politics of English nationalists who have imposed unwanted new borders on it reveal an indifference 100 years after its creation that does not portend well.

So what of its future? That would seem to be the question to which, as has been the case for so much of its existence there is no obvious answer.

The Good Friday Agreement delivered peace, compromise and chances. The hope must be for more of the same. But with the greatest threat now coming from England - allegiance to which resulted in its existence - the signs are not good.

I wish I could be sure Johnson and his cronies understood what peace requires. I am not convinced that they do, or care. And that is yet another cause for deep concern.


Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:

You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.

And if you would like to support this blog you can, here: