Sam Porter and Denis O’Hearn (hereafter poh) accuse us of radically misrepresenting the current situation in Ireland in the interests of sectarian Ulster unionism and British imperialism. They claim that our explicit and implicit agenda is the maintenance of the union of Northern Ireland with Britain, and that we are too busy attacking Irish nationalism ‘to address the problematic nature of unionism and the unionist state’ (p. 133). This charge is both a misunderstanding of the article and the issues, and demonstrates the problems and errors inherent in adopting a particularistic and narrow perspective, as encapsulated by the poh critique.
In the first instance, the point of the article was to focus on recent developments in the politics of the Irish Republic; Northern Ireland was discussed only in so far as it figured in political debates in the Irish state. To the obvious chagrin of poh, who appear to live in the backwater of the ‘failed nationalist revolution’ and wish readers to believe that the events and politics of Northern Ireland are the sole political issue, the article accurately reflects the politics and society of the Irish state which are far more complex. The reality is that while Northern Ireland is an overdetermining influence on Irish politics and society, it is neither the primary nor only issue; its population, and particularly its young people, look increasingly to the European continent. For too long, political commentary has (mis)treated the Irish state as an appendage to events in Northern Ireland; this is a gross and misleading oversimplification. It was time to set the record straight.
poh are also wrong to suggest that the absence of a sustained discussion of Ulster unionism or of British policy towards Northern Ireland, neither of which was integral to the focus of the article, is indicative of our role as apologists for both. They are obviously unaware that one of us has co-authored a history of the Northern Ireland state, which a recent review praised for providing an understanding of the dynamics of unionism while adding: ‘to their credit they make no attempt to excuse the political form unionism takes.’footnote1