Sinn Féin set to take on mé féin movement south of the border
The omens for a devolved, power-sharing government would not seem very good, but only time will tell.
Why did so many people stay at home? There was a time when it seemed that all of the living on both sides of the political divide voted, as well as some of the dead.
In counties like Fermanagh and Tyrone the electorate was so closely divided that every vote counted, and the two tribal camps could be expected to get out the voters.
Unlike down here, where election promises are used to bring out the voters, some of the candidates up there promised to do nothing. They got elected on the basis of their abstentionism.
In 1974, the Sunningdale Agreement collapsed, largely because of the unionists' hostility to power-sharing with nationalists. That is no longer an issue.
Even the DUP has accepted the principle of power-sharing, but they will probably be even more inventive than the Ulster Unionists when it comes to producing reasons for refusing to co-operate with Sinn Féin in the newly-elected Assembly, as they are likely to be entitled to nominate the First Minister and Sinn Féin will be nominating the Deputy First Minister.
Can you see Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams on the same team? David Trimble was paralysed because of the hostility of the DUP and the anti-agreement people within his own party.
Will Jeffrey Donaldson and company now gain control of the party and become even more obstructionist? Even if the UUP pull the whole thing out of the fire in the final counts, Trimble will still be a prisoner of the dissidents within his own party.
For decades, the rallying cry of unionists was 'not an inch'. The first British prime minister to stand up to them was Margaret Thatcher, who concluded and implemented the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985.
In 1998, more than three-quarters of a century after the introduction of partition, the majority of unionists finally said 'yes' to something the Good Friday Agreement.
David Trimble dragged his heels in implementing it, possibly because he had no real political choice. The unionist people voted for the agreement, but almost half of the members of his party were opposed to it.
Their biggest problem was probably the enthusiasm of their neighbours on the other side of the tribal fence. For decades the unionists complained about the territorial claim in Article 2 of our constitution, but this was dropped as part of the ratification of the Good Friday Agreement.
We formally recognised the right of Northern Ireland to exist as long the majority of the people there wish to retain their existing status. The agreement provided a formal recognition that unionists had been calling for since 1921.
Of course, the intransigence is not all on one side. Seán Lemass effectively recognised Northern Ireland by paying a visit to Prime Minister Terence O'Neill at Stormont in January 1965.
Lemass thought that he would get into trouble with the electorate here, but the gesture was welcomed and even applauded in the Republic. As a result it was O'Neill who got it in the neck instead.
From the nationalists that he met in the North, however, Lemass concluded that "for them the day partition ended would be the day they would get their foot on the throat of the Orangeman across the road". For all too many of the northern nationalists the aim has not been civil rights, but revenge.
Likewise, on the other side of the divide, the aim of too many unionists is not just protecting their own civil rights but dominating their Catholic neighbours.
While in jail with republicans, many of the loyalist paramilitaries began to realise that the ruling class had kept the people at each other's throats for their own personal advantage. It was all a political game.
One of the political repercussions down here could be the further rise of Sinn Féin. Their popularity could be catching. When Michael McDowell's wife stated that she would not bother reporting a crime to the gardaí, a friend of mine remarked that he would not do so either.
He said he would report it instead to Martin Ferris, the local Sinn Féin deputy. This individual is not a supporter of Sinn Féin, but he believes the hands of the gardaí are tied.
All too often the gardaí know who commits a crime but they cannot act effectively because they don't have enough evidence, and they can't get the evidence because they don't have the authority to look for that evidence. It's a vicious circle.
BEFORE the last general election somebody reported a theft to Ferris, who went to the suspected culprit and asked him to return the stolen property. It was duly returned.
Ferris insisted that he did not use intimidation; he just asked the culprit to make restitution. This was undoubtedly the truth. He did not have to use intimidation, because some of his associates have already established particularly nasty reputations for themselves.
We are in deep trouble when decent people look to Sinn Féin for justice, but nobody should be surprised. In 1997 Fianna Fáil promised zero tolerance, but that promise was as empty as their campaign promises during the last general election.
People at their wits ends in parts of Dublin and Limerick are likely to turn to Sinn Féin, if only because they have nowhere else to turn.
Michael McDowell is promising a war on drugs. He undoubtedly means well, but he is apparently content to use the same old methods that have failed so dismally elsewhere. Only he has the arrogance to think that he can succeed where others have failed at such enormous expense, not only fiscally but also socially and morally.
They have spent billions of dollars waging a war on drugs in the United States for past 30 years, going back to the administration of Richard Nixon.
He won election on a law and order platform in 1968. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and the two Bushs have all waged the same war on drugs, but the drug problems are as bad as ever. Are we going to waste our millions like they wasted their billions?
Policies that have failed in the United States are not going to work here either. If every drug dealer in this country was arrested and incarcerated, there would be as many people again to take their places, as long as people can make a fortune peddling drugs.
Anyway, how could our Minister for Justice jail them all, when he is planning to close jails? If he is really serious about tackling the drug problem, he is going to have to come up with new ways not just the same old law-and-order crap.
Implementing failed policies is a recipe for further failure, growing disillusionment, and the advancement of Sinn Féin not as latter-day saviours, but as a protest against the mé féiners who have been plundering the country from Leinster House.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
