Live in the present, not the past and give the queen a royal welcome

Let’s not forget that she is making a big gesture too by going to the Garden of Remembrance

IT’S sad that some Irish people define their identity as Irish by reference to their hatred for the British. It’s sad too that so many prefer to blame Britain for our own woes rather than admitting to Ireland’s own failures. And it’s sad too that they are so caught up in the history — and demanding retribution and apologies for it, while offering weasel worded regret for the wrong done by some Irish people and always justifying it as a response — that they prefer to live in the past rather than in present.

The reaction of some, but thankfully a small number, to next month’s visit of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth to these shores has been pathetic. Sinn Féin claimed that her visit is “premature” and sufficient apologies and retribution have not been delivered by Britain for the wrongs done to Ireland. It has claimed that the start date of May 17 is insensitive because it is the anniversary of the Dublin — Monaghan bombings, an event that many believe was orchestrated and carried out by members of the British security forces. Gerry Adams has spoken of people taking “offence”.

Well just as Adams has a democratic mandate to be heard in Dáil Eireann despite an IRA past that many believe he has, Queen Elizabeth has a popular and proper mandate from the British people to represent them. There have been complaints about the appropriateness of her visiting the Garden of Remembrance and Croke Park, the latter the scene of the original Bloody Sunday of 1920.

As a Corkman I am well aware of the city’s history, and the burning of it by the Black and Tans during the War of Independence. As a former pupil of the North Mon I know of the bravery of Terence McSwiney and Tomas MacCurtain in standing up for what was right and in giving their lives for it. But I don’t believe that means that Cork should be as petty-minded as to say that the queen should not be welcomed to the city because of that.

Britain is our nearest neighbour and, particularly in modern times, has been a good one to us (and us to it). For all of the wrongs that were done to Ireland by British misrule and occupation in the past much good was done too.

We have benefited from many of the things that the British introduced to Ireland. It is as much our fault that we lost daily use of our native language than it is of the British — we could have hung onto it as tenaciously as many did with the Catholic religion has we really wished to do so. Instead, we have taken the English language, embraced it, enhanced it and used to our own advantage. We have embraced so many facets of British culture and done the same, as well as protecting and developing our own. As the visit to Croke Park emphasises, having that international dimension to our sporting issues has not impacted negatively on the development of our unique Gaelic Games, again because we were sufficiently interested to do so.

We also have enormous business links. Notwithstanding our common membership of the EU and of the single currency the euro (of which Britain is not a member), Britain remains our most important trading partner. We need our exports to it to help pay our debts. Of course our State is also getting loans from Britain as part of the IMF/EU loans to the government, €7 billion or so. Britain has every reason to try to assist Ireland: British investment in Ireland is larger than in the so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — which the four fastest developing major economies in the world.

The hackneyed and cliched knee-jerk response to the Brits is deeply immature but thankfully comes from only a small number. Some hide their anti-Britishness behind a declared distaste for monarchy, although you don’t hear of protests for the likes of Prince Albert of Monaco when he came to Ireland last year. Personally, I find the idea of monarchy, and hereditary monarchy in particular, silly but it is no big deal as long as we don’t have such a system in our own country.

I have no interest in the forthcoming British royal wedding, as many Irish people (nationalists from the North among them if I recall the interest in the Diana and Charles wedding from the early 1980s correctly) will have. But I also remember how when Princess Diana died in 1997 how coverage of her funeral in the following day’s Sunday Tribune, where I was editor at the time, gave us the highest ever sales of the paper in a 10-year-period. In any case it is for the British people to decide for themselves if that is what they want for themselves. And once they do then we should welcome their chosen representative. This is an issue of good manners and of friendship. Indeed, these are the characteristics that Sinn Féin and other nationalists in Northern Ireland, and those of us in the south, have shown much more of in recent times. Nationalists north of the border share power with people who continue to pledge allegiance to the crown.

Only last week those qualities of compromise were on display during a remarkably sad occasion, the funeral of PSNI officer Ronan Kerr, killed by Neanderthal republicans who have a psychopathic approach to life. Thankfully, Sinn Féin now knows this approach to be wrong both on moral and practical grounds which makes its playing to a small audience so disappointing. Look at how the likes of the DUP leader Peter Robinson overcame his own religious beliefs and attended the funeral mass. How then when men like him, with whom nationalists have had legitimate complaint over the years, make such gestures could we be rude to the chosen representative of the British people.

Nobody needs to bow or scrape, but it would be nice if all would be polite when an 85-year-old woman comes to visit, just as our President Mary McAleese has been welcomed with graciousness on many occasions to Britain. It has nothing to do with marketing ourselves as a tourist destination — although that will provide some useful side benefits — but just with showing ourselves to be grounded, mature people, good neighbours who can put aside rows from the past.

Let’s not forget that she is making a big gesture too by going to the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin, which is dedicated to “those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish freedom”. Remember too that her uncle Lord Mountbatten was murdered in 1979 by the IRA near his home in Co Sligo. She has reasons not to like the Irish because of that, but is wise enough to know that vast majority of Irish people at the time were sickened by that, just as they were by IRA atrocities on this island and in Britain. So let’s respect her right to pay her respects at the Irish National War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge, a memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens to the 49,400 Irish soldiers who died in the first world war.

I hope she enjoys all the various horse studs she wishes to see, and a visit to the English Market in Cork and Trinity College Dublin to see the Book of Kells, and to Guinness, a great company with great links between Ireland and Britain. Let her enjoy the trip and let us enjoy it too. What’s the point in constructing controversy and taking offence? None.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30 pm to 7pm.