'A Jaundiced View of Irishness,
Influenced by Poor Role Models'
Dear Editor:
I feel compelled to respond to the letter by "Beano" Steve Ferson of Belfast and printed in the February issue of The Celtic Connection.
It is not so much a reply as an appeal for forbearance and a charitable attitude from all who read it. Those who did so cannot help but realize that the poor fellow, at time of writing, was very much misinformed on some aspects of his tirade.
In judgement of his letter, please remember that it must be borne in mind the almost unreal environment he had plainly been caught up in, probably from childhood and through no fault of his own.
As Humpty Dumpty succinctly explained to Alice in Wonderland, "Words mean whatever I choose them to mean; neither more nor less." A place where truth becomes unrecognizable and empty and twisted myths from the past become fact to justify things of the present, especially the most bizarre.
Look, for example, at this word "Loyalist," used with such wild abandon to describe certain types in that artificial mini-state sometimes referred to as Northern Ireland and at other times Ulster. In both cases incorrect and calculatedly misinforming.
How could this have occurred? Well, here's how.
Two or so years before the First World War, the Liberal Government of Britain under H.H. Asquith, was given an overwhelming mandate by the British electorate to grant Home Rule to Ireland.
The Home Rule had already passed two readings of the "House" and a third would make it law. But then the Tories, looking for a means of getting the Liberals out of office, saw this as an opportunity to achieve their aim.
Covertly gathering a cabal of their own kind, including two Irish collaborators - Edward Carson and James Craig - they played what was referred to as "the Orange Card."
With an owned and controlled press prepared to accede to their play, they succeeded in rousing a significant segment to an almost paranoid state of hysteria. Mixing an induced fear for the loss of jobs with whatever latent bigotry they could fan, they coined a rallying cry, "Home Rule is Home Rule."
At this stage of induced mass neurosis, they (please note well) armed this group with German weapons and had them demand to be under the "protection" of the German Kaiser William if the mandate Home Rule was declared.
Along with this amazing anti-democratic mob terrorism came an exquisitely timed mutiny of high ranking British Army officers then stationed in Ireland. Under this treachery and naked terrorism, the Asquith Government cowardly succumbed.
Winston Churchill, who at the time was in the Government, referred to the main plotters as agent provocateurs and said, "they are indulging in treasonable activities." Needless to say, however, of all these schemes and "treasonable activities," was the brazen claim to the term "Loyalists."
These armed anti-democratic terrorists clung with sublime hypocrisy to this expression, while the controlled press literally flung the buzz word at them until like mud, they were covered with it.
Never was an honourable word so abased and misapplied. These masquerading "Loyalists," were not only disloyal to their fellow countrymen, but also to the British electorate and their King. Once again, exactly to whom and to what were they loyal to?
The sleazy business didn't end there. War time with Germany was now in the offing and the affairs of Ireland required some settlement. It was tenuously agreed among the various parties that, for (please note again) a "provisional or temporary period," namely the duration of the war, a border would be drawn up between the six north-easterly counties and the rest of Ireland.
Most everybody knows what happened since then.
Getting back to "Beano," Ferson. His wanting to be Irish is plainly evident and, of course, he is. He has every reason to be proud of that fact. It is only when he tries unsuccessfully to juggle contradictions that he begins to seem a little phony, even laughable so.
In his jaundiced perception of Irishness, he appears to be influenced by poor role models, when he might have chosen genuine Irish patriotic "loyalists," even the founders of the Republican movement such as Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, Henry Joe McCracken, Rev. James Porter - all Protestants by the way - among a whole pantheon of other great men and women of various religious persuasions, united in their Irishness.
But, unlike the growing number of more knowledgeable and well intended people from the same milieu as himself, who have rid themselves of the debilitating shackles of prejudice, and who are in the vanguard of reconciliation with their neighbours and other fellow Irish, Beano is still a captive to "thrice told tales" form the murky past and false contemporary "agent provocateurs."
Yours truly,
Tom Phillips
Celista, B.C.
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