I’m not sure what’s been happening to Sir Jeffrey. First he stood on platforms with Jimbo Allister et al, shouting about British sovereignty and the Acts of Union that were supposedly causing ructions up and down the land, then he bumped his head or something and started coming over all reasonable.
Now, having faced down the hardliners within his ranks, he says people don’t understand those Acts and are spouting about it from a place of ignorance… which no doubt has m’learned friend choking on his cornflakes.
And with an election on the horizon, he’s now decided it’s surely time to cosy up to the UUP, reminding those members of the party he famously deserted, that unionists are really one happy family, so closer realignment between the two parties should happen in the future. Said the spider to the fly.
But, as Jimmy Cricket would say, “There’s more.” Jeffrey has been poring over the latest opinion polls and those interesting facts about demographics which have shown a steady decline in support for the union among younger generations.
In a light-bulb moment, he realised that wee Ulster was “no longer a place where 70% of the population are red, white and blue British”. He said the coming generations would determine the union’s longevity, not a parliament or a court.
Well, who knew? Maybe the rest of us who mightn’t share their constitutional views, but also wanted to live peaceably in a society that recognised our rights and culture too?
I hope he continues on his Damascene journey. It’s long overdue that a unionist leader recognises what many have said for years. If you make Northern Ireland a fair and equitable place that respects the right to be Irish too, then the status quo will be harder to shift.
Maybe he needs to learn something from UUP councillor, Linzi McLaren, who’s received threats for supporting the building of a new stadium at Casement Park.
It’s long overdue that a unionist leader recognises what many have said for years. If you make Northern Ireland a fair and equitable place that respects the right to be Irish too, then the status quo will be harder to shift
There’s been a curious symmetry in the news in the past week, with the row over Casement continuing to dominate the headlines, while the family of Sean Brown, the GAA official, murdered as he closed the gates to his Bellaghy club in 1997, learned that more than 25 individuals - including state agents- were linked to his killing.
Sean Brown’s murderers saw the GAA as a republican organisation, so if you couldn’t easily access a Provo to kill, a GAA man would do just as well.
That antipathy towards the GAA persists in many unionist minds today, though it’s dressed up as concern over the spiralling costs of building the stadium, amnesia veiling the fact that the DUP torpedoed the original plan for a multi-sport stadium at the Maze.
I grew up in a largely unionist area of Belfast, so had zero connection with the GAA. I associated it with ‘country’ people, for whom the local club was a badge of identity. At Queen’s it was the culchies who wore their county jerseys. It wasn’t for us city types.
It was only when I married an ex-Breda man that I began to understand the importance of Gaelic sports and their role in Irish society. In fact we spent the first day of our honeymoon glued to the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final, when Antrim lost to Tipperary.
It’s been an education. But I still don’t understand why the GAA shut down Casement in 2013 and allowed it to fall into dereliction while they faced court challenges because they failed to engage properly with local residents.
I’m pretty sure the Uefa officials would have run a mile if they’d seen the state of the grounds a few weeks ago, before the panicked clean-up got under way.
Now it’s all down to Chris Heaton-Harris, who has been sending out mixed messages about the UK government’s cash commitment to Casement Park, and DUP communities minister Gordon Lyons, who seems not to have read Jeffrey’s memo about reaching out.
