ALLOWING IRISH citizens living in Northern Ireland to vote in presidential elections would make a more meaningful contribution to achieving a united Ireland than a “sycophantic” welcoming of Queen Elizabeth II to Dublin, Fr Joe McVeigh said yesterday.
“The creeping partitionism of recent years has to be stopped and reversed,” said the Fermanagh born priest.
Speaking at the annual General Liam Lynch Commemoration in Fermoy, Co Cork Fr McVeigh said that instead of adopting such practical measures, political maturity in Ireland is measured “on how low we can prostrate ourselves before the current British monarch”.
Anyone who objects to the proposed visit by Queen Elizabeth II to Dublin will be branded as “die-hard and irrational while those who bow and scrape will be praised for their political maturity” Fr McVeigh told the 200 or so strong gathering at Kilcrumper Cemetery.
Asked how Northern nationalists would view such a visit, Fr McVeigh said most will ignore it as they do when the queen visits the North but he counselled strongly against any “slavish and sickeningly sycophantic behaviour by the institutions of State”
Fr McVeigh said the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition had led to the abandonment by Dublin of Irish nationalists in the six counties. However, the Good Friday agreement, despite its shortcomings, have given many people the hope that the conflict can be resolved through dialogue and that Irish unity can be achieved by “negotiation, political persuasion and political pressure and political mobilisation”.
Fr McVeigh said dissident republicans opposed to the Good Friday agreement have no support among the mass of Northern nationalists and represent nobody but a rump of embittered individuals whose gripe is not with British imperialism but with the Sinn Féin leadership.
“It’s as simple, as petty and as personal as that,” he said.
The task for Irish republicans living in the real world is two-fold – to persuade Unionists that their best interests lie in a unified Ireland and perhaps the even greater challenge of persuading people in the 26 counties that their best interests lie in a united Ireland, he said.