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Dangerous talk in UlsterJohn E. SayersPublished online: 15 Apr 2008.

To cite this article: John E. Sayers (1967) Dangerous talk in Ulster, The RoundTable: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 57:226, 229-231, DOI:10.1080/00358536708452676

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00358536708452676

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Northern Ireland

DANGEROUS TALK IN ULSTERTHE HERESIES OF A BISHOP

W ITHOUT the fatal violence that blotted the record of last year, NorthernIreland continues to be the scene of a classic struggle between the

forces of progress and reaction. Taking the longer view there can be rathermore confidence in the outcome, but there are moments when the balancesways alarmingly. The same community that in December heard the promiseof long deferred electoral reforms was by February deeply involved in anotheruproarious tangle of politics and religion.

This was, surprisingly, centred on the Bishop of Ripon, Dr. John Moor-man, the Church of England's principal observer at the Vatican Council andleader of the delegation to the conference with Roman Catholic theologiansat Gazzada. The better to understand these contacts, the Irish ChurchAssociation, a body of clergy and laity of the Church of Ireland, arranged forthe Bishop to lecture in Belfast. The visit having been given the support ofthe Bishops of Down and Dromore and of Connor, he was offered the useof St. Anne's Cathedral.

In terms of tactics on the part of the ecumenists (in so far as the IrishChurch Association are of this mind) the invitation to the Cathedral was amistake, aggravated when Dr. Moorman heralded his coming with thestatement that in any union of Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism thePope would be the chief Bishop. The intellectual processes by which hereached this conclusion are not, alas, given to the average Ulsterman, andthere followed a sequence of events that throws serious doubt even on hisown cherished notion of civil and religious liberty.

In opposition to all hospitality to the Bishop of Ripon, the rabid Pro-testant movement led by Rev. Ian Paisley began to organize parades to theCathedral. The Orange Order, not to be outdone, threatened to march alsountil the Dean of St. Anne's, fearful of acts of desecration, was obliged towithdraw his invitation to the Bishop both for his lecture and to preach atthe services on the preceding Sunday. No doubt with a proper care forpublic peace, the Dean said he had acted " in order to maintain the growingspirit of goodwill in the community ".

Little of this was apparent, however, in the shouts of triumph from theOrangemen who found themselves so carried away as to forget their ownprinciples of free speech. That these have been tarnished is clear even to theextent that relations between the Order and the Protestant Churches, already

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230 DANGEROUS TALK IN ULSTER

strained over the issue of membership of the World Council of Churches,may never be the same again. Such is the new strength of liberal opinion,both in religion and in politics, that the Orange influence is now being openlychallenged and by many of its own clerical members. In this light theexclusion of the Bishop of Ripon, while a bad defeat for Northern Irelandas a whole, has evoked a healthy release of a more independent spirit.

It is only fair to say that the Church of Ireland, soon to celebrate 100years of Disestablishment, is embarrassed by Canterbury's " courtship " withRome. For a Low Church that has yet to accept fully a union with theNonconformist Churches, the thought of a new Catholicism is incompre-hensible. As for many other Ulster Protestants, particularly the sects, allcommunication with the Roman Catholic Church is treachery to theReformation, and a sell-out to Dublin as well.

Paisley's Support Falls

W ITH these reminders of the atavism that is the most formidable thing aPrime Minister has to contend with, Captain O'Neill has entered a year

that he himself has said may be even darker than last. This was perhaps toomordant; others prefer to think that Paisleyism has condemned itself by itsexcesses, and that the murders to which it undoubtedly gave rise haveadministered a lasting shock. Three Protestant fanatics now serving lifesentences for shooting Roman Catholic youths at the height of the unrestduring the summer have been convicted in vain if the community has notrealized the nearness of its escape from a sectarian bloodbath.

Something of this reawakening of conscience, a theme brought out by theLord Chief Justice in the course of the trials, may be seen in the lessenedpopular support for Mr. Paisley on his release from jail in October. Thoughno less active oratorically his para-military ambitions appear to have beenprevented, though he is left still with the power to create tension wheneverhe unfurls a banner and starts to march.

For Captain O'Neill the autumn brought the almost inevitable attackfrom those who equate the Paisley threat with his liberal conduct of govern-ment. The Prime Minister went so far as to call the discontent in theUnionist Parliamentary Party " a conspiracy ", but if it was ever this it waspoorly organized and died from a weakness of both head and body. Nocritic, Ministerial or backbench, came out openly: the party at large spokedecisively in Captain O'Neill's favour and the danger of revolt blew over.

For how long remains a question. The Prime Minister's main strengthis that he is the man in possession and the architect of material gains. Hewill not be overthrown so long as he can keep crisis out of the Cabinet Room.

It is no detriment to Captain O'Neill's own sense of purpose to say thata share of the credit for such liberal measures as are now in prospect belongsto the Prime Minister in London. In two meetings with Mr. Harold Wilson,brought about by the amount of criticism of Northern Ireland heard in the

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DANGEROUS TALK IN ULSTER 231

Commons at Westminster, the Unionist leader has been under no littlepressure to prove his party's capacity for democratic development. Hehimself may not have been in need of the instruction, but it has had thevalue of teaching the other members of his Cabinet that Northern Irelandcannot be a law unto itself. Captain O'Neill, indeed, has been too lonely avoice in political education of this kind, and it is one of the brave marks ofhis leadership that in the midst of the latest religious confusion, confusionthat influences a mass of the public, he has persisted with the attempt towiden Unionist minds.

The need to avoid an estrangement between Ulster and Britain shouldnot need emphasis. All suggestions of a Unionist or Protestant dictatorshipare clearly damaging; under a Labour Government the threat of a reductionof special economic aids from London is considered to be a real one. Butthe ultimate danger is in the loss of sympathy for Northern Ireland's positionwithin the United Kingdom, a bond that, as Ulster people are slowly comingto see, they can no longer take for granted.

As it happened Mr. Wilson's appearance at the Council of Europe, whenhe was questioned by the delegate of the Irish Republic, caused him tospeak of this issue in a way that to some ears was ambiguous. It was hardlynew for a British Prime Minister to say that if reunion was agreed betweenNorth and South he would give it his blessing, but it was said with sufficientemphasis to enable Dublin to claim that Britain was divesting itself of itsNorthern Ireland interest. Wisely, Captain O'Neill declined to see anythingof a detente in this impromptu from Strasbourg, and restated his reliance onthe Ireland Act of 1949, and its bestowal of the right of self-determinationon Parliament at Stormont.

He did not add, as he might have done in the party councils, that sucha right can be effective only so long as Parliament conducts itself in amanner acceptable to British standards. In fact the state of Ireland todayis due to the realization, both South and North, that if the end of partitioncan be foreseen at all, the Common Market will have a greater influence thananything else.

Mr. Sean Lemass was probably the first to look in this direction. Howfar his successor, Mr. Jack Lynch, does likewise Captain O'Neill is not yetto know. Their first meeting still lies ahead, not because of any unwilling-ness on either side, but because even so conventional an exchange betweenneighbouring Prime Ministers can still be seen in Northern Ireland todayas part of the egregious bogey of the Romeward trend.

JOHN E. SAYERS.Northern Ireland,

February 1967.

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