From Kerryman Online of Jan 16, 1996
This article sums up the whole charade. Thanks are due its author.
OPINION; Northern Peace:
Council of the Isles is a lunatic idea
By Mick MacConnell
As I write this, the various parties in the Northern
peace process are agonising over a position document
submitted for their consideration by the Irish and
British governments.
Selected leaked portions of British thinking surfaced
in the Tory press over last weekend. Among other
suggestions is one which involves setting up a so
called Council of The Isles which would be answerable
to both governments and to whatever Northern Assembly
might be set up.
This is a right bit of lunacy and no mistake.
While I'm totally aware of the fact that it is regarded
as politically incorrect to express even the most mild
form of republicanism or even nationalism these days,
this proposal is an affront to any Irishman or woman
with even one drop of red blood in their veins.
To even contemplate getting involved in any arrangement
that would involve diluting our hard-won sovereignty
would be the gravest insult possible to countless
generations who have fought and died in the cause
of national freedom.
To contemplate getting involved in such an arrangement
to placate narrow-minded sectarian bigots who have
consistently proved that they are incapable of grasping
the concepts of fair play and social equality would be
to add insult to injury.
We have travelled too hard a road and have suffered too
much to sell the pass at this stage. We have experienced
the bitter legacy of British rule for far too long to even
contemplate taking another sniff at it. This is definitely
a non-starter.
This so-called Council of the Isles would involve the
Welsh and the Scottish in addition to the Irish and the
English. One has only to look at the way the British have
traditionally treated the Scottish and the Welsh to get
a glimpse of the potential future.
For neither of these two Celtic nations fared particularly
well under British rule. The Scots know what it is like to
be cleared from their lands so that the rich could enjoy
deer hunting.
They know what it is like to see their traditional industries
decimated and destroyed. They have seen their oil being
plundered and exhausted by a hungry south whose policies
have turned the highlands into an economic wasteland sustained
only by a trickle of tourism.
The Welsh have fared little better. Their coalmines have
been closed and hundreds of thousands of men made jobless
because of London-based greed driven by commercial expediency.
They have also seen their industries go to the wall and
communities reduced to beggary. The unemployment rate is
horrific and the prospects extremely gloomy indeed.
No. The problems of Northern Ireland are problems which
ultimately have to be settled by the Irish people within
the confines of this island. Few people doubt that the
problems will ultimately be solved, but there is a right
way and a wrong way to go about it.
A Council of the Isles is the wrong way.
Such a ramshackle arrangement would only serve to throw
another cloak of comfort over those who have by their own
sectarian and bigoted actions shown that they are incapable
of facing up to the consequences of their own actions.
They are drinking in the Last Chance Saloon and the more
enlightened of the political parties representing hard-line
loyalism know it.
And strangely enough, it is from this quarter that signs
of political realism are beginning to emerge. Ironically,
these are the people who will be of the most importance
before the Fat Lady Sings.
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