Book review: Glenn Patterson explores a very Irish issue in The Last Irish Question

Glenn Patterson approaches the question of whether a united Ireland is a realistic prospect as he takes a road trip around parts of the six and 26 counties, minding his language — literally — as he travels. Liam Heylin goes along for the read

Sat, 15 Jan, 2022 - 21:00

THERE’S a young woman living in London who comes from one part of Ireland and realises she is not from another part of Ireland when talk turns to The Late Late Toy Show. From there and not from here. The young woman comes from the North. She knows she is from a distinctly different part of the island when her friends from the Republic chat in London about their experiences growing up and watching the toy show.

As Glenn Patterson tells it: “Nothing makes her feel more Northern than the social media nostalgia storm the show stirs among her Southern Irish friend groups.”

After reading Patterson’s excursions into the language of division and unity on this island, one feels newly tongue-tied about whether to capitalise the North or call it Northern Ireland and maybe use lower case n for northern or call it the six counties (capital or lower case s and c).

Before we get tongue-tied, he offers us a tongue-in-cheek glossary of terms before embarkation. He warns that many republicans call their country Ireland and might not appreciate you calling it the Republic of Ireland or the Republic or the Irish Republic.

Confused? What about if you don’t live on the island at all? “Éire is its preferred name in Irish. If you do not speak Irish, and most of all if you are English, you should not say Éire.”

Upper case, lower case, a comma here, an indefinite article there — Patterson parses and analyses the way the slightest nuance in how something is described can carry a world of altered meaning. He delights in the description of the late Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney being described as a “Northern, Irish poet”. And then there’s the way ya tell ’em, and how ‘How now brown cow?” in the Republic becomes “Hoi noi broin coi?” in the North.

Patterson (who tells us he’s from Belfast and his wife is from Cork) comes at serious stuff from oblique angles and often in a light-hearted way. There’s an element of the pub philosopher as viewpoints are cloaked with vague but indisputable, anecdotal prefixes like: As far as this friend of mine is concerned, Northern Ireland will always…

The Last Irish Question by Glenn Patterson

However, really the book queries the possibility that it will not always be as it is and that it may well be about to change. And that could mean becoming part of a 32-county republic.

Special mention is made of the source of the advertisements placed in The New York Times, which said that it was high time we started thinking about a united Ireland.

The obvious objection from the point of view of unionists is that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and the unionists would like to keep it like that.

However, there is another serious bread-and-butter issue that crops up in several conversations that Patterson has with punters in the North — there’s no way they’d want to pitch in with the 26 if it means having to pay 50 quid every time you see the doctor. Amazing how often that crops up, despite compelling evidence that the average income in the Republic is appreciably higher than in the North.

A more serious point is made about the reluctance among nationalists to enrol in the PSNI. Reluctance may not be the word to catch it. The story of Captain Peadar Heffron is a deeply chilling reminder of how much progress remains to be made. In 2000, the GAA lifted its ban on members of the security forces taking part in its sports. Catholic Peadar Heffron not only joined the PSNI but captained a GAA team made up of PSNI colleagues. In 2010 dissident republicans blew up his car, an explosion that cost the constable his bowel and his right leg. Not enough for the dissidents, they made a poster of Constable Heffron as a menacing reminder on Belfast lampposts to other Catholics who might feel brave enough to overcome old barriers.

Patterson writes: “Peadar Heffron is on record as saying that he felt shunned by the GAA in the aftermath of the bomb that maimed him. Never mind into 26: 6 still has trouble dividing into itself without rancour.”

Covid didn’t help the cause in terms of the writing of the book. Ideally, this road movie of a book would have had all sorts of voices embodying all sorts of debating points. To an extent, it does, but it is limited by the lockdowns. Too often, the writer is left to tell us what a journalist buddy thinks or

what someone in his family has noticed.

Covid gets stitched into the fabric of the book as much as it has become part of our lives, but writing about Covid doesn’t help here as it detours from identity issues that need full concentration.

Patterson can’t resist straying off-piste to scan the front pages on the day he happens to be writing and offering his own particular editorial. While his take on the lockdown-busting attendance at the Bobby Storey funeral is germane, it is less so when he sinks his teeth into the Golfgate debacle.

The controversial funeral in June 2020 of veteran IRA man Bobby Storey, which was attended by thousands, including the Sinn Féin leadership, despite Covid restrictions being in place at the time. Picture: Alan Lewis

At other times — in fairness, a lot of times in the book — the jumping-into-a-taxi ethos works very well as Patterson meanders by the scenic route rather than the main road towards a topic.

One conversation with a taxi driver is very telling and shows how the drivers around Belfast, for instance, have developed a sixth sense about their passengers and whether their world views might be ones that the driver shares. In some of these moments, well-chosen conversations are cleverly illustrative of social mores.

Patterson varies his approach too, which enlivens the read. We can be taking the slow boat to a point and enjoying that journey, when he suddenly cuts to the chase and says what he wants to say.

Back with the turnout for the Bobby Storey funeral, he says that for all the shots of unionist and nationalist politicians smiling away for photo-ops — chuckle-brothering so to speak — Patterson takes a cold stare at the images coming from the republican’s funeral: “This is one of those moments, I tell myself, looking at those men in their black and whites, to store away, to call to mind when you think it is you who is crazy or paranoid, that, you know, maybe the IRA Army Council does not really exist and therefore can’t possibly have influence over Sinn Féin both south and north of the border.”

Much as the cost of going to a doctor in the Republic versus NHS provision in the North keeps coming up, there is another theme that emerges from a number of interviews the writer, and it is a heartening one. Several people who were asked about their view on the prospect of a united Ireland say they wouldn’t like to see any change occurring that would do anything to diminish peace. If in doubt, leave things as they are.

Discursive, humane, and meticulously attentive to verbal nuances that can spell a world of meaning, there is plenty to enjoy on this lively road with Patterson.

However, if one can be allowed an indulgent PS from the other end of the country, where those of us from Waterford have become used to the occasional lumping in of the Déise with our Wexford neighbours simply because we both begin with a W and end with a ford. In a book about the existential qualities of here versus there, Patterson’s publishers might pull out the magic marker for the second edition and correct the reference to “Rosslare, in Co Waterford.”

To which one can only say, ‘Ah here!’