It is an absolute cinch, you’d imagine, that in any future or theoretical “United Ireland”, the 12th of July will be a bank holiday. As such, this statement from Green TD Patrick Costello will probably go nowhere: Why hand over for free ahead of time what the state can graciously offer in the future as part of the negotiations ahead of any referendum on unity?
STATEMENT: Costello calls for the Irish Government to make 12th of July a public holiday. pic.twitter.com/CrQoOJ2fvm
— Patrick Costello TD (@Costellop) July 10, 2023
There are a few problems with the proposal in principle though, even from my own infamously west-brit perspective: First, like so many constitutional nationalist nods towards “inclusion” and “making unionists feel at home”, it misses the point: British people in Northern Ireland do not oppose Unity because the Republic of Ireland isn’t brit-friendly enough: They oppose it because the Republic of Ireland is not British, and they are. As I’ve written before on these pages, the way to think about this stuff is to imagine that Rishi Sunak promised to change the UK anthem to “Jerusalem”, and make St. Patrick’s Day a state holiday, in return for Ireland re-joining the UK. Would you be convinced? Would you be more accepting of the idea?
The other problem is that July 12th is probably the wrong day to pick, if Ireland really wanted to make serious overtures to Ulster protestants.
Ulstermen – or at least those of them who are persuadable – mostly understand why the Republic would not commemorate the battle of the Boyne, given that the consequences of the Williamite victory for Irish catholics were severe.
What they understand much less is the disrespect and ignorance shown by the Irish state towards the tens of thousands of Irishmen of both traditions who lost their lives fighting side-by-side in the first world war. 3,500 Irishmen died at the Somme in the battle that began on July 1st, 1916. It is probably little known in Ireland that the controversial Orange March at Drumcree, for instance, does not commemorate the battle of the Boyne, but the battle of the Somme. Infamously, in the post-independence Ireland, many of the Republican dead at the Somme were entirely forgotten, and left off war memorials. Commemorating that battle would probably be a more important nod to Irish unity than commemorating the Boyne. Make July 1st, not July 12th, the holiday.
The other thing Unionists might say about a July 12th holiday is this: What’s the point?
It would be the functional equivalent, they’d say, of Northern Ireland making St. Patrick’s Day a holiday but banning celebrations. Do we really think, in our heart of hearts, that a 12th July Orange Order parade through the centre of Dublin would be tolerated by the population? My suspicion is that it would not be. What’s the point of a holiday to commemorate a battle when the heirs to the victors of that battle are still too afraid to publicly remember it in our state?
Finally, there’s an inherent contradiction: The battle of the Boyne was fought at least in part for a cause which this state was founded over: An end to the sectarian dominance of Protestantism. It can reasonably be argued that the loss at the Boyne, and the end of the Stuart dynasty, resulted in another couple of centuries of oppression for Irish catholics, which ultimately led to the end of the Union. Why would this state commemorate such a crushing defeat for the people it was founded to represent – especially when some – not all, but some – in the unionist community still unfortunately treat the 12th as a historic monument to their own supremacy. The equivalent of this would not be the North celebrating St. Patrick’s Day – it would be more like the North celebrating the pogroms of Protestants that happened in parts of Ireland post-independence.
Most of all, though, this is just premature: This country is not yet ready to tolerate Orange Parades or the idea of Unionists as fellow Irishmen, any more than Unionists are ready to abandon their Britishness. There remains, in the Republic, too widespread an attitude that no true Irishman could possibly be Orange, for this to be a runner.
And if that wasn’t true, then we’d already have noted the significance of July 1st, and the Somme, for Unionists – a day that we’d be far better off learning about than July 12th.