Madam, – The Irish State formally left the British Commonwealth in 1949 with the establishment of the Republic of Ireland. At that time, this policy was seen as a natural further step in the direction of a fully sovereign Irish state, separate from Great Britain. Yet today, almost 60 years later, there are Irish and British figures across a wide spectrum of Irish life calling for the restoration of the Commonwealth link (March 23rd).
Many of the signatories to this letter are members or patrons of the Reform Movement and the Irish Unionist Alliance. They are a small, unrepresentative, Anglocentric, neo-unionist minority who wish to restore a “British Dimension” to the 26-county state, and appear to have influence out of all proportion to their actual size. The very fact that this topic is being openly canvassed by a group of influential people cannot be ignored and must be regarded as an open challenge to the continued existence of the Republic of Ireland state separate from Britain.
Rejoining the Commonwealth would be a backward step. It would gradually “re-British” the Irish State and would amount to a rejection of the separatist aspect of Irish nationalism. Because the British monarch is always head of the Commonwealth, this would mean that, symbolically speaking, the monarch would occupy a higher position politically than that of our own democratically elected head of state.
Despite claims to the contrary, there are no discernible tangible benefits for nationalist Ireland in rejoining the Commonwealth. For instance; there would be no big transfer of funds to Ireland, as with our membership of the European Union. There are no new trade, cultural or diplomatic opportunities to be had. In any case, our trade policies are largely determined by our EU membership.
The restoration of Commonwealth ties would not help the situation in the North, as its advocates would claim. Indeed, it could make matters worse by emboldening reactionary unionism and sowing demoralisation among nationalists.
Furthermore, the timing of this missive, as Ireland faces its severest economic challenge since the foundation of the State, is both cynical and disingenuous. It informs us that we will need all the friends and connections we can get to counter “the perilous economic times that lie ahead”. Having failed to keep the Irish people in subjugation by force of arms, Ireland’s British nationalists are now offering financial rescue as an inducement for Commonwealth re-entry. This is a further attempt to deconstruct the Irish state and restore the British dimension. It will fail. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Perhaps the Commonwealth dreamers might tell us how many of the former colonies now in the Commonwealth as republics are still partitioned and partly occupied by the former colonial power?
Perhaps, also, the current dose of economic reality might jolt us out of our sentimental obsessions with the US and with our neighbour’s esteemed monarch. The sooner we move on from our delusional ditherings about “neutrality” and the sooner we drop the cute hoor conceit that we can play the US/Britain axis as a hedge against unequivocal participation in the EU, the sooner we will mature together as a people and as a country.
Sentiment is no substitute for policy. Tax breaks, not sentiment, brought US companies to Ireland. Ireland’s future is as a fully-aligned region of the mainland – the European one that starts at Roscoff. – Yours, etc,