Irish Sovereignty in 21st Century: A Message From the Diaspora

Nationhood Is Worth Protecting on the Emerald Isle

Sovereignty is self-rule, be that of a nation or of a person. Irish sovereignty is on the ropes, succumbing in plain sight to the European Union federation. Given the ease with which information spreads now, this trend has not gone unnoticed among the Irish diaspora, of which I am a member.

An Irish citizen of exclusively Anglo-Celtic heritage, I was born and raised in New Zealand and only came to know Ireland as an adult. However, I am one of the few descendants of Easter Rising leader Patrick Pearse, by way of his half-sister Emily Pearse. 

Pearse and his siblings—Willie, Margaret, and Mary Brigid—had no children. That means descendants from his father James’s first wife Susanna‘s children, of which two survived into adulthood, are the only ones that remain from the Pearse family. My great-grandfather Alfred McGloughlin, Emily’s child, also got to live with the Pearse family for a few years of his childhood. He was imprisoned in the early 1920s during the Civil War for his role with the Anti-Treaty side.

I recently received an invitation to attend a candidates forum with the Irish Freedom Party (IFP). My desire was primarily to listen and learn. However, my concerns regarding Ireland’s nationhood have not been a secret, so when called on I shared a few remarks with the attendees.

My chief observations were simple, but they are too infrequently spoken in the public square.

1. Brussels has replaced London as the imperial city ruling over Ireland. The Irish revolutionaries gave their lives for independence from the British Empire. Incrementally, the fruits of their sacrifice have been largely undone by foreigners and self-hating Irish. Éamon De Valera foresaw this trend towards a European federation and in 1972 remarked: “I am the first and last president of an independent Irish Republic.” Trinity College Dublin Professor Emeritus Anthony Coughlan notes that the European Union is “a supranational antidemocratic system that deprives Europe’s diverse peoples of their democracy.” Even if the European Union were democratic, Ireland would barely register, constituting just 1 percent of the federation’s population.
   

2. The redistributive welfare state has undermined Irish independence and self-esteem. Proud, self-sufficient, and free people neither need nor desire overlords, be they in Brussels, Dublin, or London. That is why personal and national sovereignty go hand-in-hand. The poster child for this is the statelet of Northern Ireland, which is now so dependent on transfers from the rest of the United Kingdom that the province is ill-equipped to decide its own fate. Where there is constituent demand for a limited safety net, it should be administered locally. It must also be tailored to help recipients out of strife—only as a last resort—and not to encourage dependency.
   
3. Ireland’s situation is precarious, with changes happening swiftly and irreversibly. Relative to natives, immigrants tend to have less allegiance to their adoptive nation, as Northern Ireland has displayed. Even if we ignore the immense pressure on housing availability, the influx of migrants to Ireland in recent years, outstripping natural births, is threatening Ireland’s sense of nationhood. The rate of foreign languages being spoken, for example, is climbing. Helping native-born Irish to learn, maintain, and use their ancestral language can be difficult enough. Forget persuading non-Irish newcomers and purely economic migrants to embrace the language. It is akin to efforts to teach Maori to immigrants in New Zealand.
   
4. The Irish way of life merits defence from international smothering. My grandmother, who left Ireland in the 1950s, reflects sadly that she missed out on less than her children and grandchildren. She grew up in an Ireland with a distinct way of life, and she had tangible relationships with her elders and their traditions. Those who have grown up in Ireland will tend to take for granted the way of life they have enjoyed. On the other hand, with each generation that passes, the diaspora loses a little of its Irish connection. However, we still want to be able to return to Ireland, and we are proud of our resilient ancestors. As Roger McGrath wrote in Chronicles magazine from the United States of the revolutionary spirit, “those troublesome Irish […] wanted their country back and had rebellion on their minds […] India, with a population of 220 million, had given England less grief than Ireland.”
   
5. An Irexit will get more difficult with time. Particularly because it would facilitate national unification post-Brexit, Ireland would best get out of the European Union while she still can. Since the European Union does not yet have a unified military force—no doubt it will in short order—there is time to leave peacefully like the United Kingdom did. One need look no further than the United States to witness how once-sovereign states with home rule have been subsumed by a federal leviathan in Washington, DC. While there are secession movements in US states (as there are in Canada) the status quo bias is extremely difficult to overcome. EU tentacles are tightening around Ireland, which has become a fiscal loser within the federation. There were teaser subsidies that sweetened initial entry, but Ireland’s future stuck in the European Union is bleak.

Fergus Hodgson (@FergHodgson) is an economic consultant and geopolitical editor based in Fort Collins, Colorado. He holds an MBA in finance from Rice University and a BA in economics from Boston University.