It was magical weather in this little corner of Ulster yesterday.
Baby Doctor was visiting the homeplace to see her parents before the next chapter in her Global Paddy travelogue.
We will miss her.
Thankfully the days of the American Wake are no more.
But there will still be tears.
I banished such thoughts for the day that was in it.
That was an easy task as my little medically qualified Gaeilgeoir, who has brains to burn, is also great craic.
She asked the old driver to take her to a favourite spot so that she could wrap up a special memory for her journey.
A lot of her childhood was spent on Machaire Rabhartaigh.
Like her dad, she prefers that place after the summer crowds, such as they are in this part of Dún na nGall, have departed.
For the day that was in it, Partition was also on my mind, and we chatted about it.
The Northern Ireland Census had finally published the arithmetic truth that many had suspected.
This province was disfigured a century ago when Britain was still a global superpower.
The chaps in London painted a line across this island with a sickening sectarian brush.
Northern Ireland was set up to create an ethno-religious pro-Union majority in perpetuity.
Despite the Six County statelet, the Herrenvolk in the Pravince fetishized that they were in Ulster.
Actually, they were only in part of it.
Yesterday Baby Doctor and her dad dandered on a beach that’s further north than most of Narne Arne but is somehow “in the south”!
The Census revealed that the days of the Protestant Majority in the Six County statelet are now over, gone, a thing of the past.
There are now more Catholics in that confected statelet than Protestants.
This editorial in the Irish News is worth your time.
“The historic and symbolic nature of this transformation cannot be underestimated.”
Quite so.
The extent of the denial in the Six Counties from those who are Bradaish was especially pleasing.
Anyone in the Six Counties who does not see this new demographic reality as a game changer is probably trying too hard.
This Tweet from Suzanne Breen puts it rather well.
This is what history feels like.
The island was partitioned to create a two-to-one majority of Protestants over Catholics.
If the same criteria were used today, this is what Narne Arne would look like.
See what I mean?
My youngest is gone now, dropped off at the bus.
Herself told me the plan is to enter GP training after this twelve-month sojourn.
She sees her future in a rural practice down the country somewhere.
In time, I hope, she will have her own babies.
Dear reader, I’m more convinced than at any time in my life that they will live and grow in a 32 County Republic.
Partition was meant to last forever, the Orange State was created to be unmovable and immutable by an in-built sectarian majority.
Yesterday we learned that was over.
That polity is no more, and Northern Ireland itself is now in the departure lounge of history.
Unlike Baby Doctor, it has no future on this island.
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been to Culdaff a few time and cant wait to go back,
Admire your optimism Phil but cant say I share it…
1) As you know, more Catholics in the six counties doesn’t equate to a border poll success.
2) Even if it did, any British government would be so scared of the ensuing unionist violence (can’t see the loyalist hatred of Catholics and a United Ireland being diluted til the next century at least, if ever), that they’d find a way of wriggling out of it. e.g. setting the conditions of any referendum so that it would require a 2/3 majority
3) getting the Republic to agree to it is no foregone conclusion.
(can you imagine the Gardai being sent into the Shankill or Sandy Row to uphold the peace?!).
I want a United Ireland as much as the next guy but fear that it’ll not be your grandchildren that will see it.
HH.
Machaire Rabhartaigh is the best spot, it is Conor’s’Holiday house’ and a special place for our family, I’m no gaeilgeoir but my 8 year old won Gaeilgeoir na Seachtaine this week at school
recognised the view straight off. used to see it from the house every morning just along the road, up the back of Dixons.
another 20 – 30 year everything should be back together again, peacefully. we have got to learn from the mistakes of the past and current present to avoid future bloodshed. events in Ukraine show that you cant speed up cultural change without bloodshed and past history in the north of Ireland also are testament. as much as we want too we just have to accept that whilst change is near if we keep cool it will be worth it
The question is can the rest of Ireland affford this little bood sucker. It has been propped up financially by the Governement in England to the cost of places like Clydeside and Ravenscraig for much of its existence. It will be a big burden.
And the sooner it happens the better HAIL! HAIL!