Ireland for a New Generation
Belfast Telegraph – Monday, 6 February 2012
The Republic of Ireland should consider rejoining the Commonwealth as Britain celebrates the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party said.
Her visit to Dublin and Cork last year suggested a new relationship between the two states, Tom Elliott added.
DUBLIN1313, JUNE 27, 2011
The Bishop of Cork, Paul Colton must be applauded for courageously drawing the State’s attention to the other ways in which people are Irish today. The Bishop rightfully points out that for too long “there was only one way in which you could meaningfully be said to be an Irish person – mythical Celtic, oppressed and Roman Catholic”. This narrow approach excluded those of us who are Irish and Protestant, Irish and British. It also excluded those from other countries who have made Ireland their home in recent years.
Reflecting on the State visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland, and in particular the wreath laying ceremony at Islandbridge,
“This for me, was a public acknowledgment and validation of my ancestors, and, more deep than that, how a family such as mine came to be in Ireland. I have no doubt the wreath-laying ceremony at the Garden of Remembrance the previous day was an equally potent symbol for many others in our country.”
Robin McKie, science editor
The Observer – Saturday, 18 June 2011
Ireland’s unspoiled, windswept west coast could become the focus of a new wave of windfarm construction in the wake of a high-level diplomatic meeting to be held tomorrow in London.
UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and other senior members of the British-Irish Council will gather to discuss a plan to expand electricity grid connections throughout the British Isles. In particular, they want to build new inter-connectors to link the electricity grids of Ireland and Britain in order to transmit power from new windfarms in Ireland to England.
Picture: The Guardian
Gary Kent – Progress Online
13 Jun 2011 12:30
I was perhaps premature in proposing this but the widely acknowledged success of the Queen’s visit to Ireland opens up the possibility.
Graphic: Independent Australia
Reform Book: ‘Ireland & the Commonwealth: Towards Membership’
The Reform Group published the book ‘Ireland & the Commonwealth: Towards Membership’ in 2010. It contains articles by writers such as Mary Kenny, Roy Garland and John-Paul McCarthy dealing with the stirring history of this period and with personalities like Éamon de Valera, Sean MacBride and Clement Atlee.
You can download or order the book at Lulu,
or order it at Amazon in print, or Kindle versions.
or any good bookshop: ISBN-10: 0-95615-771-8, ISBN-13: 978-09561577-1-3
“Was Home Rule then to be a means, not of fulfilling a distinct Irish destiny, but of strengthening a wider sense of Britishness, making Ireland at last a contented province of Britain?” (Boyce 1986:236)
“The answer, of course, was ‘No’, even if John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party wrestled with those contradictions in a more thoroughgoing, sophisticated and independent-minded way than later national historiography ever gave them credit for doing. The view has gained ground in more recent historical reassessment that by 1914 they had within their grasp at least as much as was to be achieved, after so much bloodshed, in 1921. Certainly they had mapped out the achievable far more clearly than had the architects of the 1916 Rising, or those who inspired the losing side in the Civil War.”
Stephen Howe Ireland and Empire Oxford. p.41.
Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture – Chronicon Review, 1999
Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture – Amazon Review
2009 marked the 60th anniversary of Ireland’s departure from the Commonwealth, and many Reform members were enthusiastically involved in this year’s campaign to encourage Ireland to now consider returning to the Commonwealth.
A joint letter to the Irish Times (3 March 2009) set out some of the main reasons to consider rejoining, and was signed by leading public figures from all parts of Ireland and these islands – including Alliance Party Leader David Ford MLA, PUP leader Dawn Purvis MLA, Lord Rana, Senator Eoghan Harris and academics such as Professor Brice Dickson and Professor Geoffrey Roberts:
Madam, – As Ireland approaches the 60th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic, is it time to reconsider the country’s membership of the Commonwealth? When Ireland left the Commonwealth in 1949 the other member-states hoped its departure would be temporary. In the 1920s and 1930s the Irish Free State had played a crucial role in the transformation of the British Commonwealth into an association of free, democratic and sovereign states. After Ireland left, the Commonwealth continued to evolve.
Ireland’s membership of the Commonwealth would, we are sure, be welcomed by the unionist community in Northern Ireland as a significant gesture of reconciliation. It would add to the collaborative framework established by the Belfast and St Andrew’s agreements. It would demonstrate unequivocally that the Republic has finally drawn a line under the troubled history of Anglo-Irish relations that led to Ireland’s self-exclusion from the Commonwealth 60 years ago. It would represent a further important step along the road to a pluralist Ireland in which different identities are recognised and respected, a country that celebrates its multi-cultural heritage and diverse history.
Reform has now published a new book, bringing together a collection of articles, speeches and reports by prominent academics, authors and political commentators on the important question of whether or not Ireland should return to the Commonwealth.
The book includes articles by: Bruce Arnold, Amitav Banerji, Robin Bury, John Erskine, Roy Garland, Gordon Lucy, Mary Kenny, Prof. Robert Martin, Dr. Martin Mansergh TD, Andrew MacKinlay MP, John-Paul McCarthy, Prof. Geoff Roberts and others.
Many of the contributors are in favour of rejoining – although the book also includes a speech by Dr. Martin Mansergh TD arguing that Ireland should not rejoin.
Reform hopes that this new book will be a timely and interesting contribution to the ongoing debate on Commonwealth membership.
The book costs just £10 and can be ordered online.
By Richard Kay – Mail Online
18th March 2011
On the eve of one of the most historic royal visits of modern times, I have news of an intriguing diplomatic mission that could set the seal on the Queen’s reign ahead of next year’s Diamond Jubilee.
Joanna Bennett, Paul Chappell, Howard Reed and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
The Royal Commonwealth Society
A Working Paper.
This paper is published by the Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS). It has been written by Joanna Bennett (Communications Manager, RCS), Paul Chappell (doctoral student at the University of York), Howard Reed (Director of Landman Economics) and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah (Director of the RCS).
Today, the Commonwealth is an association of 54 countries, spanning 6 continents with a combined population of over 2 billion people worldwide. Evolving out of the British Empire – a gentle anaesthetic to ease the pain of de-colonisation – the Commonwealth is now a modern voluntary association of equal, sovereign states. But it seems that longstanding questions about the relationship between trade and empire remain relevant even today.
Queen’s visit highlights Britain’s closeness to Ireland
JOE LYNAM - The Irish Times
Thursday, April 28, 2011
OPINION: Tomorrow, the British will celebrate as only they can. And we’ll sneer ’cos we don’t like them and they don’t like us. Right? Wrong. . .
AS I had spent most of my post-university years on continental Europe, I had little or no exposure to Britain before I got a job with the BBC exactly a decade ago. I had formed the deluded opinion that, after decades of threats from the IRA/INLA, English people didn’t really like us.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
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