Republican Commonwealth

Irish News columnist, Roy Garland, has argued that it is time for the Republic to rejoin the Commonwealth: "This would add to the message that old animosities are being forgotten and the Republic is becoming a place where different traditions and identities meet and mingle in peace, safety and equality."

Garland writes that "reconciliation cannot mean the end of differences. That would be absorption whereas reconciliation entails acceptance of differences making them less divisive. Those nationalists who violently reject anything other than a 32 county mono-cultural Irish state hostile to Britain plainly do not seek reconciliation. But re-entering the Commonwealth does not mean a return to subservience but new relationships as envisaged in the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Good Friday Agreement, St Andrews’ and the British Irish Council. It could encourage a new version of an ancient vision by which Irish people contribute to a better world.

"Republicans feared British imperialism but many unionists feared a kind of religious Catholic imperialism. Catholic doctrines were enshrined in the Irish Constitution. The sale of contraceptives was declared illegal while divorce was unconstitutional. Claims on the territory of the six counties were experienced as threatening and imperialistic. While most imperialism has positive and negative aspects we tend to emphasise the positive in our own and the negative in other people’s imperialism. Protestants believed the Catholic Church kept their people in ignorance while Irish nationalists believed the British kept the Irish people in slavery.

"Despite changes, some unionists still regard the Republic as a threatening alien state. Some have never crossed into the south just as some southerners have never seen the black north...

"Today I see the Irish Republic in a different light even though aspects of that state, including the preamble to the constitution, overtly exclude people like me whose ancestors might have been Irish patriots but probably never Irish nationalists. Yet I no longer feel alienated from the “grey skies of an Irish Republic” and can feel at home in either jurisdiction. Further dialogue, experience and actions are necessary to remove the remaining barriers. If the south was to re-enter the Commonwealth, the log-jam might be broken, hurts might heal more quickly and new relationships grow more strongly.

"The modern international, multi-cultural Commonwealth consisting of 53 independent states, many of which are republics, exists to serve common interests and promote international understanding and peace. It represents thirty per cent of the world’s population and includes a very broad range of faiths, cultures and traditions. Irish people have many ties with the Commonwealth and re-joining would give expression to relationships that already exist. It might free unionists from the shackles of siege mentality that almost denies their Irish heritage. But their deep attachment to Britain and the Ulster Scots heritage need not and cannot be bartered to enable them to appreciate their Irish inheritance as well."

It is not the first time such an idea has been mooted. If memory serves me correctly Gaeltacht minister and Dev's grandson, Éamon Ó Cuív, also suggested the same some years ago. Would the Republic joining the Commonwealth threaten the Republic's independence; would it appeal to unionists; would many nationalists be in favour and would it bring any concrete benefits?