The Ascendancy

The Ascendancy

Reflecting on the Irish problem as I often do, it seems to me that the existence of the protestant ascendancy in Ireland is at the root of this historic problem. The protestant ascendancy in Ireland rose to prominence and power in Ireland at the battle of the Boyne where the protestant King William defeated the catholic King James. In Ireland the protestant minority community became the ruling class as of right and ruled a defeated penalized catholic majority. This convention was retained in the 1801 Act of Union and thereafter the will of the protestant minority was what mattered while the will of the catholic majority was of little consequence.

With the setting up of the Northern Ireland six county statelet whose constitution was the unwritten imposed 1801 constitution, protestant ascendancy rule continued in the six counties and the state was kept constitutionally stable by the suppression of the catholic minority identity. I can recall living in West Belfast prior to the upsurge of the civil rights campaign in a new housing development whose inhabitants were 50/50 catholic/protestant. Relationships in the estate were excellent even though a few Union Jacks appeared on the Twelfth of July at the marching season but a display of the Irish Tricolour couldn’t be considered, as the police wouldn’t tolerate it. Indeed there are those who date the beginning of the troubles to a protestant protest led by Ian Paisley, against the display of an Irish Tricolour in a shop window in the catholic Lower Falls. My reading of the civil Rights Movement is that historically it mounted a challenge to Protestant ascendancy rule in the six counties and had the reforms envisaged by Terence O Neill been implemented with the backing of Ian Paisley there wouldn’t have been violence in the six county state. In later times Ian has made the magnanimous concession that in Northern Ireland Catholics can have anything they want and so they can, provided they don’t want rid of an unwritten imposed undemocratic U.K. constitution and don’t demand a catholic as first minister. However The Civil Rights Movement was hijacked by Republicans and corrupted by Republican violence and atrocity.

While there is now a bogus peace in the six counties since the Assembly was set up yet there remains an under-belly of violent discord in sectarian clashes in the streets of Derry between Catholic and Protestant youths, in the defacing of Orange and G.A.A. halls and in the continued existence of dissident Republican groups, namely the Real and Continuity I.R.A. to say northing of the peace walls in Belfast. Still in this analysis, this violence and discord will persist as long as an imposed unwritten undemocratic constitution remains in place in the six counties. The impact of this constitutional set-up is a clash of wills between the marginal Protestant majority and a significant Catholic minority. This clash of wills is expressed in the painting of kerbstones red, white and blue, and green, white and orange and in the flying of disparate conflicting flags. In this dichotomy the two communities sulk in mutual resentment behind peace walls in Belfast and in Derry in a bogus peace.. In the Assembly defeated Republicans sit in collaboration with a diametrically opposed Party, Right Wing Union Jack Unionism who have still to come to terms with the new reality that the days of the ascendancy are now over, but these are being propped up by Late Sinn Fein who are the arch enemies of and the implacable foes of the Union and are out to destroy it. Late Sinn Fein first used brute force but that effort was defeated; now they resort to political stealth but the destruction of the union remains their sole aim. But Late Sinn Fein must accept the cold reality that the only strategic rout to an all Ireland Republic is by the Protestant minority in Ireland converting en masse to Republicanism, a conversion that will not happen now or never since the central plank of Protestant culture is loyalty to the Crown. That said the Protestant loyalist community must also face the cold reality that since the days of the protestant ascendancy are over, the unwritten imposed U.K. constitution that goes with the ascendancy notion, has collapsed and is finished. There was a strong whiff of ascendancy rule about Ian Paisley and this whiff lingers with the D.U.P. and as long as this remains there will be Republicans to oppose it. There is also a strong whiff of ascendancy in the mentality of the Orange Order in the clash of communal wills at Garvaghey Road. The British cut the Provisional head off the I.R.A. monster but like the Lernean Hydra of old, the decapitated I.R.A. monster sprouted two new heads, The Real and Continuity I.R.A.

If this horror scenario is to be avoided in the six county state, then the people there will have to think again and anew about their constitutional future. New thinking will need a new party, which should be a united Ireland friendly, and the union and Kingdom friendly party. Such a party can be Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein, which should promote a new concept of a Federal Kingdom of the Sovereign Nation of Ireland and Great Britain in a National Government of Ireland Act. This Act should synthesise Unionism and Nationalism and in so doing draw up institutions and symbols, in a written constitution, which is acceptable to all, be they Catholic Protestant or Dissenter. In this way a genuinely peaceful united Ireland can be realized within a Federal Kingdom dimension.

Introducing Irish Unionism

Introducing Irish Unionism

It has been a long-standing tradition in Ireland that to be a Unionist one had to be British. This notion has bedevilled relations between these two Islands for centuries. It is the contention of Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein that to resolve the Irish problem unionism will have to change from Britishness to Irishness.

For this change to be realized the Crown would have to be reformed in relation to Ireland. The Irish will never do a U –turn in their history and revert to loyalty to a British Crown. However Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein contends that the Irish can return to loyalty to a reformed Crown with out doing an historical U-turn.

In principle a union between these islands is acceptable since the islands have a close historical connection especially having to do with the Crown, provided that such a union is democratically acceptable to the people. Had such a union been established in 1801 the history of the United Kingdom would have been a happy one free from discord, but being imposed and favouring the protestant ascendancy the United Kingdom was doomed to violence discord and failure. The United Kingdom remains military imposed in the six counties and has engendered violence and will end in failure. Right Wing Union Jack Unionism have betrayed the idea of the union in their collaboration in the Assembly with Late Sinn Fein who are the arch enemies and implacable foes of the Union and are out to destroy it. Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein holds that the idea of a new union is good in principle but that such a new unionism can only be realized in Irishness not in Britishness. Irish Unionism can be accepted by those in Ireland who are Irish to the core but who find no inconsistency in being loyal to a reformed Crown. For those Protestants in Ireland who cling to Britishness in the forlorn hope that the ascendancy can be preserved need to wake up to the cold fact that while the day of the ascendancy is now over, the notion of the union can be retained in the concept of a Federal Kingdom.

To establish a Federal Kingdom in these islands will require a written constitution for Ireland. This will require that the National Government of Ireland Act be written. This Act should give a written democratically acceptable constitution for the Federal Kingdom of The Sovereign Nation of Ireland and Great Britain. For a constitution to be democratic it must enjoy the overwhelming support of all of the people. This overwhelming support for the constitution is absent in the six counties. There the constitution has only the support of a marginal majority. In effect the six county constitution is imposed by a marginal majority on a resentful minority and maintained by an armed militarily garrison. This unwritten undemocratic constitution is then rammed down the throats of the minority by a public posturing by the Orange Order on the Twelfth of July and by the Apprentice Boys in Derry in August. That is how an unwritten constitution operates. Were such demonstrations solely religious in Nature they would be acceptable but since they are the expression of an imposed constitution they should not be found in a democratic state. This constitutional conflict is evident on the Garvaghy Road. The resolution of this historic conflict lies in the promotion of the Irish Unionism of Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein with a written constitution for all Ireland in a Federal Kingdom context, the constitution being acceptable to all, be it the Catholics of Kerry or the Protestants of Derry. Irish Unionism in the National Government of Ireland Act can remove the walls of sectarian division in Belfast and make the painting of kerbstones red white and blue or green white and orange a thing of the past. It can transform fortress police stations into freely accessible democratic buildings open to an accepting population but above all else Irish Unionism can rid all of Ireland of its national sickness, sectarianism In all of this neither Catholic or Protestant have anything to fear but fear itself.

It was the constitutional claim of the late Brian Faulkner that Northern Ireland is the same as Yorkshire. There is an attempt by the British Establishment to treat the six counties, as the same as Yorkshire, since the Assembly was put in place but the dogs in the street know that to be a fallacy. The people of Yorkshire aren’t disputing the constitution and that dispute makes the six counties different and unique in these Islands but the Irish Unionism of Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein recognises the unique nature of the six counties and knows how to resolve it.


Michael Gillespie B.Ed BSc ( Econ) Dip. Ed D.A.S.E. M.A.(Ed)

A Cairde

A Chairde

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