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John Bruton 1947-2024
Having returned from the funeral of this politician I think now is a good time to assess the modern Irish State which came into being approximately 100 years ago today and in which the above Meath gentleman played quite a leading role from his election as a TD in 1969.
The Irish State is more the product of the dreams of earlier Irish generations than I think any other in the world. Centuries upon centuries of Irish patriots dreamed and fought during the mythical – but certainly real at times – 700 year drive for independence.
But of course our enemies always concluded that the Irish could never govern themselves and indeed that conviction, that we as a race were too stupid (too stupid for example to see that many of our leaders were secretly in the pay of our enemies) or too disunited to work an independent state, reached fever pitch in the years before 1914, when it looked like we were eventually to get at least some measure of ‘Home Rule’. Its interesting therefore to look back on that period to see what were the real objections to Irish independence and compare that to what really transpired.
In this bit of comparative history I think we could look to an article in the Guardian newspaper of early 1914 to see what those fears about the Irish ability to run a state actually were. (The Manchester Guardian 17 Mar 1914, p.10.) At that time that newspaper, which was well respected in those years, sent over a reporter to Belfast and environs to assess what was the real objection in those parts to an independent Irish state. Again and again the story he got was that ‘Home Rule would be Rome Rule’, that the Irish were so priest riddled that any new state would be a theocracy – although thats only a new phrase – under the thumb of what they saw as a corrupt Pope in Rome.
That much was very predicable, but the interesting thing here was that the reporter went on to interview the then military commander of the UVF in Cavan, then Colonel but later General Oliver Nugent, later the O/C of the Ulster Division at the Somme. He is now widely considered a very intelligent man, and the subject of a number of recent books, and its fascinating to see therefore his insight into what Irish Independence might mean.
As regards the ‘Rome Rule’ theory his reply was: “That’s rubbish,” and, to cut a long story short, I believe he was right in his prediction. That remains a completely daft and silly interpretation of the recent history of this country. It did NOT, in any shape or form resemble a theocracy, and those that state it did are either completely ignorant of the true history or are deliberately rubbishing either the Church, or indeed Irish nationalism itself, for their own reasons.
And I would go further and simply say that Irish people went onto to create a very good country. It remained mostly peaceful for that 100 years, unlike almost everywhere else in Europe, it mostly punished miscreants, and not with excessive force or laws, it gradually impoved the living conditions in housing – from a very poverty stricken base –, education and health care etc, and retained also a genuine level of democracy in terms of debate etc. I think its a country that all Irish people should be proud of, until the year c.2000 at any rate, approximately the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years.
But what is interesting here is what the General went onto say as his objections, or fears, for an independent Ireland. He predicted that ‘jobbery’, the obsession with largesse from the state in the form of money and state jobs, could dominate politics:
You can replace the Hibernians reference, and insert instead political parties, and ask yourself if he wasn’t pretty on the mark with his predictions there.
The second issue he saw was that some Irish people tend to seek some kind of sense of approval from outsiders, ignoring their own countrymen and their opinions, and this of course is a fatal flaw to a democracy, because it leaves the country very open to the ‘opinions’ of corrupt international or transnational institutions. He explained it thus, which I think is broadly this point:
In otherwords while we are famous for our physical courage, we sometimes lack moral courage, and instead chase after some, I would suggest outside, party, to ‘obey’. This has proved then to be the great flaw of modern Irish politics I would suggest, we seemed to have joined the EU, UN, WHO and the whole sorry host of very corrupt international institutions, seeking somebody, outside Ireland, to ‘obey’, frankly, to the great destruction of our country.
So unfortunately I would reverse now many of the things said about independent Ireland above, for the last 25 years or so. Under a clear policy of population replacement, i.e. the eviction of the native Irish as in previous Plantations, most of the public services and ordinary living arrangements are collapsing for many Irish people now. I don’t think we have a remotely democratic country now, for example a free press – i.e. not a government propaganda machine – is clearly a prerequisite for a democracy, and that we clearly do not have.
The ‘Tragedy’ element in the above title, is that the modern Irish political elite don’t seem to understand this. They live in the bubble of their compliant media and NGOs paid by the state, and are very clueless about how rotten the system has got, or indeed the degree to which Irish people have woken up to that fact.
So while I wish to say ‘Lord have mercy’ for the soul of John Bruton, and offer my condolences to his son Matthew and the rest of his family, I cannot help thinking that in modern Ireland a lot of the great dreams of the patriotic forebears of our race, are dying with him.
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