{"id":155045,"date":"2025-10-31T09:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T09:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/155045\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T09:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T09:58:08","slug":"irish-unity-has-come-closer-thanks-to-catherine-connolly-and-jim-ocallaghan-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/155045\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish unity has come closer, thanks to Catherine Connolly and Jim O\u2019Callaghan \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catherine Connolly\u2019s<\/a> election as incoming president has brought the prospect of a united Ireland closer, but the left alliance that backed her will not be the government that makes it happen. <\/p>\n

The catalyst will be the new leader of Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> at the next general election, a succession Connolly\u2019s emphatic victory has set in train. Her triumph has been accurately described as \u201cseismic\u201d, for it has shifted the tectonic plates under this island.<\/p>\n

Almost everybody agrees Miche\u00e1l Martin\u2019s<\/a> heir apparent is Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The latter\u2019s declaration last year that he was open to entering government with Sinn F\u00e9in was a stark counterpoint to Martin\u2019s consistent refusal to contemplate coalition with the political wing of the defunct Provisional IRA. <\/p>\n

Equally significant is O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s repeated espousal of reunification compared to Martin\u2019s insistence on a precondition of reconciliation. Many Fianna F\u00e1il members and voters complain that, under the current leader, the party has surrendered its republican heritage to Sinn F\u00e9in and that even Fine Gael\u2019s blueshirts look greener.<\/p>\n

The Minister for Justice is unafraid to say he wants this island to become a single sovereign state. \u201cFianna F\u00e1il is a republican party founded by \u00c9amon de Valera in 1926, the primary aim of which is to secure the unity and independence of Ireland as a republic,\u201d he said in March 2021 in a speech at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge where he obtained his postgraduate law degree. <\/p>\n

His party\u2019s ambition, he said, was \u201cto see our country and its peoples peaceful, prosperous and united\u201d. He went on to list seven principles of equality for knitting the island back together, on the assumption that \u201cat some stage over the coming decade a future Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will make the political judgment provided for in the Northern Ireland Act 1998\u201d to call a poll on the constitutional status.<\/p>\n

Martin, who has visceral disdain for Sinn F\u00e9in, has said he joined Fianna F\u00e1il because of the Troubles, but that his simplistic \u201cBrits out\u201d view was changed utterly when he visited the North and met people from both communities while he was a history student at University College Cork. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jim O\u2019Callaghan will bide his time, but the great game is onOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"MicheálMiche\u00e1l Martin has been subtly stitching unravelled parts of this island back together again. Photograph: Brian Lawless\/ PA Wire <\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s insights are likely to be bolstered by regular visits to Belfast where his sister, Margaret, lives with her family and she is a professor of history and politics at Queens University. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach refuses to play the fantasy politics game of \u201cwill I see a united Ireland in my lifetime?\u201d but, by O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s reckoning, it may happen when, the auguries suggest, he could be the Fianna F\u00e1il leader in government.<\/p>\n

The first item on the agenda for Martin\u2019s successor will be to reframe Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s identity as an entity separate and distinct from Fine Gael. After a decade of co-operation \u2013 the 2016 confidence and supply arrangement followed by two consecutive coalition governments \u2013 the former war enemies have become indistinguishable in the eyes of many voters. This year\u2019s corporate-focused budget has compounded the impression.<\/p>\n

Severing that cord will be an immediate imperative for a new leader. As a Dublin-based TD, O\u2019Callaghan has watched Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s support in the capital being gobbled up by Sinn F\u00e9in, even in more privileged constituencies like his own Dublin Bay South. <\/p>\n

Going into government with Mary Lou McDonald would be perceived by many, especially younger voters, as post-history pragmatism some 30 years after the Belfast Agreement was signed. It would be deviously savvy, too. As Fianna F\u00e1il has learned to its cost, governing with a party farther to the right than your own has electoral consequences.<\/p>\n

The presidential election has undermined Martin\u2019s leadership because of his blunder in choosing Jim Gavin as the party\u2019s candidate. Yet, worryingly, it has proven Martin right, too. Sectarian abuse directed at Fine Gael\u2019s Presbyterian candidate<\/a>, Heather Humphreys, has exposed continuing divisions requiring an investment in reconciliation.<\/p>\n

Should Ireland\u2019s unification come about under the aegis of Fianna F\u00e1il in government, it will be thanks in large part to Martin\u2019s legacy. By establishing the Shared Island unit as a priority of the last government and locating it in the Department of the Taoiseach to secure its funding, he has been subtly stitching unravelled parts of this island back together again. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Martin always outmanoeuvres FF enemies but the Jim Gavin error leaves him vulnerableOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"WhenWhen does the job of laying the ground work for unity give way to planning for it? Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/ The Irish Times <\/p>\n

The current Programme for Government allocates \u20ac1 billion to the capital fund for North-South projects. Some of the most notable are the construction of the Narrow Water Bridge connecting the Cooley Peninsula to the Mourne Mountains, the cross-Border Ulster Canal, hourly trains between Dublin and Belfast and the preparation of an application for Unesco world heritage status for the astrological observatories in Birr, Dunsink and Armagh. <\/p>\n

The fund\u2019s support for artistic, cultural, educational, tourism and infrastructural initiatives has, literally, been bringing people together. After all, a referendum in the Republic approving unification will be ineffective if the corresponding poll in the North rejects it. <\/p>\n

Martin, with typical circumspection, has rubbished suggestions that the Shared Island initiative is a Trojan horse for Irish unity but its effectiveness in deepening cross-Border collaboration is undeniable. <\/p>\n

There is, however, growing impatience. A poll last February<\/a> by ARINS (a joint project of the Royal Irish Academy and the University of Notre Dame) and The Irish Times showed 66 per cent of respondents in the Republic would vote for a united Ireland in a referendum. But former taoiseach Leo Varadkar has claimed Martin\u2019s unwillingness to plan for unification is creating an \u201cartificial barrier\u201d to a referendum. <\/p>\n

The stalemate begs the question: when does the job of laying the ground work for unity give way to planning for it? Like eternity, the need for reconciliation has no end-by date. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0What would a united Ireland actually involve?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

O\u2019Callaghan has been doing his own planning. As he told his Cambridge audience: \u201cResolving the problems caused by the partition of Ireland and aspiring to the cherished aim of reunification are legitimate political issues that should be decided by discussion, debate and democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a first-time Minister, he is in no hurry to assume the leadership of Fianna F\u00e1il. Allowing Martin to see out his term as Taoiseach until November 16th, 2027, as agreed with Fine Gael, will allow him more Cabinet experience. One hundred years after former gunman Dev led Fianna F\u00e1il into D\u00e1il \u00c9ireann would be a symbolic juncture to begin planning for an all-island Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catherine Connolly\u2019s election as incoming president has brought the prospect of a united Ireland closer, but the left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,1921,23935,18,13,14,4771,2215,6,19,17,26735,69831,11,12,15,16,5765,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-155045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-catherine-connolly","11":"tag-common-ground","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-fianna-fail","16":"tag-for-you","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-jim-ocallaghan","21":"tag-justine-mccarthy","22":"tag-latest-news","23":"tag-latestnews","24":"tag-main-news","25":"tag-mainnews","26":"tag-micheal-martin","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115468193484683447","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}