Saturday, March 13, 2010
WE are really in the midst of a revolution of sorts. All of the old certainties are being washed away. People are now questioning all the previously authoritative figures in society.
Politics has become so enmeshed with corruption that political leaders are discredited, along with the bankers who engaged in daylight robbery, the medical consultants who were not even reading their letters of referral and the church figures who have been exposed with facilitating and covering up the most vile crimes against children. It is time to take stock of our position.
In July 1945, Taoiseach Éamon de Valera treated the Dáil like schoolchildren by reading the definition of a republic from various encyclopaedias and dictionaries. All essentially stressed that a republic was a country, without a monarchy, in which the supreme power was vested in representatives elected by the people.
"Dictionaries and encyclopaedias in other languages give definitions and descriptions in no wise essentially differing from these," de Valera explained. "If anyone still persists in maintaining that our state is not a republic I cannot argue with him for we have no common language. There is no common set of words and ideas between us."
The 1921 Treaty essentially recognised the British king as the symbolic head of state. The king’s representative would only act on the advice of the Irish government. Ireland would be essentially sovereign, but many people wished to do away with all the symbolic links with the crown.
Michael Collins accepted that the Treaty did not confer the ultimate freedom to which he aspired, but he argued it contained the freedom to achieve the desired freedom. De Valera argued, on the other hand, that it did not.
In the 1930s the Long Fellow proved Collins had been right, but he behaved as if he had been right himself all along. De Valera managed to do this by changing the perception of what the civil war had been about.
He pretended he had opposed the Treaty because of partition, even though he had told a secret session of the Dáil in August 1921 they had to accept partition or they would be making the same mistake with the North that the British made with the rest of the island. After signing the Treaty, Collins challenged de Valera to suggest an alternative.
De Valera accepted the challenge and proposed an alternative Treaty that included the partition clauses of the Treaty verbatim. At the time all sides accepted that a Boundary Commission proposed in the Treaty would transfer to the South the significant contiguous nationalist areas like counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, along with areas of south Down, south Armagh and Derry city.
By the time the Boundary Commission met, however, the South was seriously discredited by the idiotic civil war. It was in no position to resist the ensuing travesty that left the border as it stood.
From then on de Valera pretended his opposition to the Treaty had been due to partition. It was a barefaced lie. The other side accused him of lying about everything anyway, and by then people were sick and tired of all the arguing.
Thereafter, when people talked about a republic or republicans, they were suddenly talking about partition, which really had nothing to do with republican ideals. The so-called republicans were naked fascists with contempt for the precepts of democracy and the sovereignty of the people.
By 1945 de Valera had managed to so change the perception of what had happened he now found it necessary to use dictionaries to explain the real meaning of a republic.
In reality, this country was not a republic at all because politicians on all sides of the Dáil had handed over the government to the Catholic hierarchy. When de Valera first gave his government the draft of the current constitution in 1936, it contained a clause stipulating, "the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church". The clause went on to characterise the Catholic Church "as a perfect society, having within itself full competence and sovereign authority, in respect of the spiritual good of man".
John Charles McQuaid, the future Archbishop of Dublin, had apparently drawn up that clause. Gerald Boland threatened to resign if it were included in the constitution. He said it would be an insult to all the great Protestant Irish people who had ever lived.
De Valera backed off and replaced the clause with one recognising "the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens". This, it was argued, only recognised the fact that most Irish people were Roman Catholics.
Watching the bishops’ press conference during the week, I could not help but wonder what people would now think of describing the Catholic Church "as a perfect society, having within itself full competence and sovereign authority, in respect of the spiritual good of man". Although that wording was changed, the politicians still behaved as if the Catholic hierarchy was the real government. The absurdity of the situation was never more apparent than on April 12, 1951 when Taoiseach John A Costello told the Dáil: "His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin courteously and kindly asked me to visit him in the Archbishop’s House."
That was a nice way of saying Archbishop McQuaid had summoned him.
The archbishop explained that he and some of his colleagues had "an incredible interview" with Health Minister Noel Browne the previous day. The bishops were insisting the Mother and Child Bill being prepared by the government could not provide free care for all mothers; it had to include a means test.
THEIR objections had nothing to do with faith or morals. This was economics, but the bishops were trying to call those shots too. To their indignation, Browne brushed them aside, "terminated the interview and walked out".
"I asked His Grace to permit me to try to adjust the matter with my colleague," Costello told the Dáil. "His Grace readily gave me that assignment and that authority." Can you think of anything more craven than the Taoiseach saying he asked the Archbishop of Dublin for the authority to talk to his own Minister for Health. He not only kissed the archbishop’s ring but also kissed him on all four cheeks.
"Due to the objections set forth in the letter to me from the secretary to the hierarchy," the Taoiseach told the Dáil he had ordered Browne not to describe the Mother and Child scheme as government policy "unless and until you have satisfied the hierarchy."
Browne did not have to win over his government colleagues, or even the majority of the Dáil, he had to satisfy the hierarchy. This was a gross betrayal of the republic, and it should be a stark reminder how and why the Protestant people of Northern Ireland could have been so suspicious of the 26 Counties. Home Rome had indeed become Rome Rule.
The Irish people had unwittingly allowed the country to be taken over by a clique and the same thing has happened again, but this time the clique manipulating the politicians were the gougers who have plundered this country. We need a change of politicians.
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