Today is World Book and Copyright Day.
It is a celebration to promote the enjoyment of books and reading.
Dear reader, being a writer isn’t what I do; it’s very much who I am.
So, for the day that’s in it, let’s start with a book I was re-visiting last night.
Anyone familiar with this work by Erik Durschmied should know to avoid the folly of determinism in history.
My particular favourite chapter is about a Habsburg army lost in 1788 because of a barrel of schnapps!
However, there are tides in human affairs that are broth discernible and difficult to reverse.
It is almost too scripted to witness the centenary of the Six County statelet lay out the factors by which it will be consigned to history.
The confluence of events has even Fine Gael politicians speaking of Irish reunification as a practical issue to be planned on this island rather than a Provo pipedream.
The first thing is that the statelet in the North East of this country was set up on a sectarian headcount.
Because of the easing of Covid restrictions, I can now travel within my own Ulster county. So today to give the oul car battery a charge, I drove to the Bridgend, and from there I could see Britain!
When Northern Ireland was set up, the line on the map was drawn by the Brits to create an ethno-statelet within the United Kingdom.
A century on, the demographic foundations of that Volkstaat is crumbling.
This BBC piece from 2014 was factually accurate, and seven years on, that population trend, if anything, has accelerated.
I note the Loyalist chap didn’t like the term “tipping point”.
Bless…
The political reality is that unionism in the Six Counties will have to make itself attractive to nationalists if the polity is to survive.
Then there is Brexit, an own goal that would make the Battle of Karánsebes look like a shrewd tactical re-deployment.
Not only did the DUP back the Leave campaign, indeed they were a conduit for some shady cash that was spent in the North of England ( for the details, see Peter Geoghegan’s quite brilliant expose Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics).
The DUP Westminster MPs sided with the chaps in the European Research Group (ERG), and they scuppered Prime Minister May’s deal.
Had it passed in the Commons, then the Northern Ireland Protocol would not exist.
These defenders of Ulsturr put their faith in the right-wing of the Tory Party.
It is almost as if these folks don’t read books at all!
From my undergraduate days reading a journal article, I remember it was PhD research by, if I recall correctly, a German sociologist. He had been on an ethnographic odyssey to Belfast and had collected data on both sides of that divided city.
One of the things that he thought worthy of recording was the difference in both communities to books and learning.
The behaviour of Republican and Loyalist prisoners in the Kesh mirrored that difference.
Consequently, if you are socialised into a subculture that does not value learning, and you’re told that you have a Herrenvolk sense of entitlement, then you might end up listening to a chap standing on a blue wheelie bin.
Irish Twitter wasn’t slow to acknowledge the comedic value of the image.
Being so openly mocked is not what Mr Bryson probably had in mind.
In 2013, he was credited with inventing a new form of biting political protest, the three-hour hunger strike.
For the avoidance of doubt, I have never met Mr Bryson although I’m sure that he is a very chap indeed.
There have been other outpourings of angst from the PUL community regarding the Protocol.
However,this Tweet does raise a rather excellent point.
Back in the world of serious politics, opinion polls are starting to show a trend where those within the broader Unionist community are perhaps seeing which way the tide is turning. The Protocol has, to an extent, detached Northern Ireland from the UK single market.
Although demographics are playing a role, I believe that much of this shift on the constitutional issue can be traced back to the hard Brexit that, by necessity, created the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The deal signed up to by Boris also, in effect, lays the foundation for an all-island Zollverein within the European Union.
Moreover, no amount of “sandpapering” will alter that reality, and the Irishman in the Oval Office will make sure of that.
Once more, we can call on our exiled children in America and gallant allies in Europe.
Sadly, when it comes to foreign allies, the PUL hasn’t got a lot of friends.
The tragedy is that they have defined themselves by their unrequited love for a polity that is about to disaggregate in the coming decades.
That the Scots are the driving force of that dissolution is almost too ironic for those who reside in the Ersatz Ayrshire of Norn Iron.
Now, for the day that’s in it, my publisher’s deadline looms in just a matter of days.
Thankfully, I’m nearly there.
Like the rest of ye, I’ve hated this lockdown and all that it has meant for all of us.
However, I’ve finally got what comrades and fellow writers have often told me about being in prison and going inside themselves to dig out the writing.
They know who they are.
So, do yourselves a favour and read a book!
At its core, it can be an act of liberation.
Care to comment?
As has been previously stated, until I submit the manuscript, I will not be looking at the site’s comments section. I’m aware that there are pages and pages of them to moderate.
As ever, I’m grateful to those of ye who take the time to post one.
I will get to them in a week or so…
Another brilliant article thoroughly enjoyed by this County Antrim man here in Bogotà! The most hilarious element however is that the site has randomly generated advertisements for wheelly bins! You could not make it up!