We are still living with the partition games played by the Long Fellow

THE biggest surprise about the continuing inability to form a government at Stormont was that anybody was surprised.

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Ian Paisley is not only the oldest dog left in Irish politics, but also probably the foremost architect of the Northern disaster. Yet, with our history, we are in no position to throw stones.

During his political career Eamon de Valera shamelessly and recklessly exploited the partition issue for his own political purposes with disastrous consequences for the whole island.

He was first member of the Dáil to suggest that Irish nationalists had to accept partition. On August 22, 1921, he warned the Dáil that trying to coerce the majority in Northern Ireland would be to make the same mistake the British had made with the Irish people as a whole.

Hence he assured the British that the Dáil had no intention of coercing the unionists. When the partition issue was first discussed during the treaty negotiations, Michael Collins reaffirmed de Valera's assurance. "It is not intended to use force, not because Ulster would not be defeated in a fight," he said "but because defeat would not settle the matter." He insisted, however, that provisions would have to be made for nationalists who had been included in Northern Ireland against their will.

"If we are not going to coerce the north-east corner, the north-east corner must not be allowed to coerce," he emphasised. "There might," he added, "be a plan for a boundary commission or for a local option, or whatever you may call it." That was the first mention of a boundary commission. The British signed the 1921 Treaty with Sinn Féin representatives on behalf of all of Ireland, even though the unionists were not even consulted.

The terms provided, however, that Northern Ireland could withdraw from a united Ireland, in which case a boundary commission would be set up to redraw the Border in line with the wishes of the inhabitants.

Collins believed that this would give the 26 Counties most of Fermanagh and Tyrone, Derry city, south Down and south Armagh.

With so little territory left, he argued, Northern Ireland would become an unviable economic entity. Singapore has thrived with even less territory, so the Collins assessment was probably wrong, but that is getting ahead of the story. When the Dáil cabinet discussed the draft treaty a few days before the signing, de Valera objected to the oath prescribed for members of the Dáil. He asked the Irish team to go back to London and reject those terms and try to put the blame on the unionists.

That was patently disingenuous, and the British saw through it immediately. Collins was in an untenable position because the British had essentially given him what he had asked for on Northern Ireland. The real issue was the oath. Collins therefore proposed a different oath and the British accepted it. Thus the oath that caused all the controversy was actually proposed by Collins, with the secret approval of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

As there was no practical difference between the treaty and what they were sent to negotiate, Collins challenged de Valera to specify what he desired. The Long Fellow presented the Dáil with Document No 2, his own alternative to the treaty. It included the treaty's partition clauses verbatim.

"We will take the same things as agreed on there," he told the Dáil. "Let us not start to fight with Ulster." Instead they fought a bloody civil war over something that both said was not worth fighting about.

To make matters worse, the political consequences have persisted to the present, in the form of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, between whom there is no real difference. After the people of the 26 Counties tore themselves apart fighting over precious little, the Boundary Commission was abandoned and the nationalist people of the North were essentially deserted by everybody.

In the late 1920s de Valera exploited the partition issue by engaging in a propaganda stunt over the Kellogg-Briande Pact, which was an international agreement to outlaw war.

HE OPPOSED the pact on the absurd grounds that it would prevent this country from going to war to end partition, even though he persistently ruled out the use of force himself.

On coming to power in 1932 de Valera admitted he had underestimated the benefits of the treaty, but by then the nationalist community had a real grievance over they way they were being treated in Northern Ireland.

The Long Fellow exploited that grievance and in the process created the mistaken impression that the civil war had been over partition. Even though he complained about the way nationalists were treated in Northern Ireland without regard for their fundamental rights, he never once asked the British to transfer the nationalist areas. He preferred to have the grievance that he could exploit to his heart's content. He cited the partition issue as an excuse for keeping this country out of World War II. The British called his bluff in June 1940 by secretly offering to end partition in return for Irish bases. Seán Lemass seemed anxious to explore the British offer, but de Valera and Frank Aiken did not want to hear of it. FH Boland, who distinguished himself as one of this country's foremost international statesmen, actually concluded that de Valera never wished to end partition because the unionists would be more trouble than they were worth.

De Valera's exploitation of the partition issue led to our international ostracisation following the war. This country was shunned and initially barred from entering the UN. The inter-party government that came to power in 1948 promptly tried to upstage the Long Fellow on the issue by launching an anti-partition campaign that was conceived to fool people.

De Valera recognised that deception because it was what he had practised throughout much of his political career. Anyway, he tried to upstage the government by going on a world tour railing against partition. If the coalition government had been serious about ending partition, he told a gathering in Drogheda on February 28, 1954, the British ambassador would have been expelled and all trade with Britain severed.

If he had been serious, it therefore follows that he would have done that himself? Seán Lemass and Jack Lynch tried to forge normal relations with Stormont, but they allowed their own supporters to exploit the gestures of Terence O'Neill, with the result that he was undermined.

Lynch had the benefit of the astute advice of TK Whitaker, who was as sound on Northern Ireland as he was on the economy, but Jack still allowed himself to be undermined by the reckless antics of Charlie Haughey and Neil Blaney, who essentially resorted to the tactics of the 1920s with equally disastrous consequences for us all.

In fairness there has been one shining exception one Taoiseach has apparently won respect on both sides of the Northern political divide, from Gerry Adams to David Trimble and even to Ian Paisley. The exception is, of course, the current Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. Therein lies a real hope for progress.