Even before Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys had been defeated in the presidential election, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, Gavin Robinson, said she had been “treated with contempt” because of the links made between her and the Orange Order.
Equally, the leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party, Jim Allister, said Humphreys had been “targeted and abused because of her Protestant background”, something that exposed “the ugly undercurrent of intolerance that still runs through southern politics”.
However, the debate in Northern Ireland about the allegations of sectarian abuse directed at Humphreys during the election has little to do with the Áras, or, indeed, Humphreys, and everything to do with hopes, or fears, about a united Ireland.
Robinson and Allister’s main target was not so much concern for a Presbyterian living on the southern side of the Border. Instead, it was about how the issue plays into the united Ireland debate in Northern Ireland, and what impact it has on attitudes among unionists on how they would be treated, if it were ever to happen.
RM Block
In a way, perhaps, that will surprise southern ears – the subject of a united Ireland and the referendum needed to bring it about has been far more prominent in Northern Ireland TV and radio debates in recent weeks than it has been for years in the Republic.
Some, but not all, of the discussions have followed the latest Lucid Talk poll, which reported that 41 per cent of respondents would vote Yes to unity if asked now, compared with 48 per cent who want to stay in the United Kingdom.
However, the difference in attitudes between different age groups is striking. Fifty per cent of under-35s in NI now want Irish unity, compared with 44 per cent against, the poll says, though support for the status quo rises as older people’s opinions are canvassed.
Few people in Northern Ireland have studied the sectarian fissures that have plagued it for generations more closely than Ulster University academic Duncan Morrow, the author of a major 2019 report on the subject.
“The issue of unity in debate here has tended to wax and wane over the years, but right now, it’s almost like a perfect storm because there’s a weariness in the peace process,” Morrow told The Irish Times.
“There’s very little apparent dynamism in the Northern Ireland Executive, so that anything will be seized upon. The referendum has successfully established itself as a very live topic in politics and in the media.”
Morrow’s principal concern is whether the abuse that was generated about Humphreys – largely but far from entirely on social media – is reflective of what a united Ireland referendum debate could end up looking like.
“The notion that we could have some kind of platonic type of debate about a united Ireland was always a bit of a stretch, but the post-colonial narratives that were shown down south have definitely got more traction,” he said.
The question for Morrow is whether campaign abuse about the Orange Order – notwithstanding the legitimate complaints that could be made about the organisation – is “a proxy for Prod”, a derogatory shorthand for Northern Ireland Protestants.
“And there’s a category somewhere in the middle, which is ‘West Brits’,” he goes on. “Does everyone who uses the Orange Order name mean Prod? Probably not. But when you put it like that, that becomes the front line of your propaganda – in both directions.”
For Manchester-based academic Jon Tonge, who closely studied Northern Ireland for 30 years, the social media undercurrent directed towards Humphreys reflected the general impression held of the Orange Order.
“The perception of the Orange Order down south would be overwhelmingly negative. The coverage would be overwhelmingly negative, with the exception of the Rossnowlagh march in Donegal which always gets a good press,” he said.
Bar Rossnowlagh, the coverage always concentrates on the sectarian aspects of the Order, rather than on the positive community role it plays in many rural Protestant communities across Northern Ireland, he said.
“The Orange Order, I think, is still seen as sort of being beyond the pale by a lot of people in the south, in so far as they ever think about it. However, I don’t think it was the decisive factor in the campaign.”
Often, the Orange Order does little to help its own reputation, he said, pointing to the calls for disciplinary action against former Ulster unionist Party leader David Trimble after he went to Donegal to attend the Catholic funeral service for three boys killed in the Omagh bombing in 1998.
Under Orange Order rules, members are barred from marrying Catholics, or attending Catholic religious services, akin to the rules enforced in reverse by the Catholic church until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
One leading Protestant clergyman, speaking anonymously, agreed: “If there is an organisation which symbolises everything that people in the south find not even strange, but creepy and sort of sinister about Northern Ireland, it’s the Orange [Order].”
However, Tonge said he was “broadly sympathetic” to the argument that the abuse faced by Humphreys, if not reflective of majority opinion in the Republic, highlights the need for debate about the changes that will be required to make a united Ireland work.
“There’s an awful lot of work to be done on how Northerners with a British identity can be accommodated in a united Ireland. We haven’t had any clear answers on how that will happen,” he cautioned.
For both sides in Northern Ireland, the election of Catherine Connolly as president has been taken as support for their argument – with the pro-unity camp pointing to her declaration that Northern Ireland is “a lost limb”, as well as her strong support for the Irish language.
Indeed, Connolly made a point of visiting Belfast after her election to attend the opening of Oireachtas na Samhna, a five-day celebration of the arts and traditions of the Irish language.
For the TUV’s Jim Allister, however, her election is “no great leap forward” for Irish unity. “She will be a toxic and divisive figure,” he said. “Connolly represents the most militant and ideological strand of southern nationalism.
“She will be deeply unpopular among unionists – even more so than her predecessor (Michael D. Higgins), which is quite an achievement in itself. Far from advancing their cause, the election has set back the so-called agreed Ireland project.”
For Protestant-born, Irish passport-holding academic Robbie McVeigh, the key conversation the president-elect should have, however, is not one with unionists.
“Insofar as she represents the whole of Ireland, not just the 26 counties, then the dialogue that she has with nationalists and republicans is more important from my point of view than the dialogue she has with unionists and loyalists,” he said.
“It would be good if dialogue with unionists and loyalists does happen. But the first priority should be to find a way of engaging with what is now the Northern nationalist majority and representing them in the wider sense of Irishness.”
For now, everyone waits to see what the Connolly presidency will look like.
“I have no doubt that the new president will find ways of reaching out to Protestants and others in Northern Ireland,” said one leading Church of Ireland figure.
“I hope she does it inconspicuously, so that she doesn’t put people in difficult positions. I have no doubt but that she will,” he told The Irish Times, before offering a wry reminder that the president of Ireland is prayed for every Sunday in every Church of Ireland service.
The weekly prayers are a legacy from earlier times when prayers were said for the British monarch: “The prayers continued after partition, they just changed the title,” said the churchman, with a smile.
