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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 19, 1982
PAGE 19
Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill (D
Mass)
Even politicians of non-Irish background, but seeking the formidable Irish
American ethnic vote, are making careless and self-serving statements with
out regard to the facts and history of the deep-seated issues at stake in
Ireland. For example, Mayor Edward Koch of New York City (a Jew), who is
running for the governorship of New York, recently blurted out: "I've said
it before and I'll say it again, England get out of Ireland." The common
thread in statements by the American politicos is that if Britain would
only pull its troops out of Northern Ireland (where they have been since
"the troubles" flared anew in 1969) the Ulster Protestants would somehow be
forced to face the fact that their future was to be recast in a united
Ireland, and that some sort of "united Ireland" formula could be peacefully
devised.
The unrealistic foolishness of this point of view was examined in an arti
cle in the December, 1981 issue of HARPER'S magazine, entitled: "The Four
Horsemen: Heading for the Apocalypse." This insightful and objective arti
cle was written by one who is neither a passionate Ulster Protestant nor a
sympathi2er of the terrorist Irish Republican Army (IRA}. Rather, it was
composed by the noted international figure from southern Ireland, Connor
Cruise O'Brien, a former member of the Irish government and editor-in-chief
of the OBSERVER, a London Sunday newspaper. Mr. O'Brien served the United
Nations in several capacities, and was in charge of U.N. forces in the Congo
in the early 1960's. He is an expert on Irish history and has authored
numerous books about his homeland.
Mr. O'Brien wrote his article for
HARPER'S in the form of an open letter to Governor Carey, Senators Kennedy
and Moynihan and Speaker O'Neill. Here are some key excerpts from Mr.
O'Brien's important, but rather lengthy, piece:
I know that you all genuinely want to help Ireland. The trouble
is that the Ireland you want to help doesn't exist, and that your
efforts have the effect of making things worse, not better, in
the Ireland of reality.
The Ireland of your imagination is an island artificially divided
by an act of British policy. Since the British divided it, the
British can reunite it•••a united Ireland would (you assume) be a
peaceful Ireland••••In bringing pressure to bear on Britain to
move in the direction of Irish unity, you are working, as you
believe, for peace in Ireland.
Ireland, notes O'Brien, is not divided by an act of British policy (the
creation of the Irish Free State in 1921, with the northern, largely Prot
estant, six counties electing to remain a part of the British realm}, but by
the "conflicting wills of its inhabitants." Moreover, those who call for
Britain to "get out" and for Ireland to somehow be united overlook the views
and fears of the Ulster Protestants whose interests are usually casually
dismissed by Americans of Irish Catholic background. Continues O'Brien in
his open letter:
I ask you to bear with me for a little, however, while I talk to
you about these people, superfluous and incongruous though you
may feel them to be.