JIMMY'S DREAM GONE SOUR
John M. Buchanan
Kit Kat Club
Columbus, Ohio
February 19, 1985

Tt is not James Buchanan, although that is a distinct possibility for
another paper some time. I share his name. He was also the President of the
institution from which I graduated, Franklin and Marshall College, at the time
of his election to the presidency of the United States. Secretary Lund has
tried to make his name mine, but this paper is not about him. Nor is it about
Jimmy Carter and his dream, nor Jimmy Foxx, nor James Rhodes. Jt is about
James VI, King of Scotland, who became James I of England, when Elizabeth I
finally died, childiess. And it is about an idea that is surely a candidate
for one of the worst in all of history: a dream gone sour.

But that gets us ahead of ourselves. First, a thesis: Barbara Tuchman,
in the opening paragraph of her fine book, The March of Folly, observes:

“A phenomenon noticeable throughout, history regardless of place

or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to

their own interests...Why do holders of high office so often act
contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self interest

suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not
te function?"

Having made her observation and posed the question, Tuchman proceeds to a
net altogether cheerful analysis of several major illustrations: the Trojans
taking the wooden horse inside the walls, Britain losing America, and America
betraying herself in Vietnam. One which she did not treat, but could have, is
the subject of my paper this evening.

It was brought into the sharpest focus for me on the evening of June lz,

1981. I found myself in an unlikely situation, drinking a little gin and
ouzo, of all things, with a group of married women, all Roman Catholics, who
lived in the Lower Falls section of Helfast. My wife and I, and two other

adults were with a group of Columbus young people, visiting, working, and
observing at Corrymeela, a retreat center near Ballycastle, on the northeast
Antrim coast of Northern Ireland. Corrymeela, which is also part of what this
paper is about, is a very small candle, burning in a very big darkness. ft is
a kind of religious community, although it is not parochially nor zealously
religious. It is supported ecumenically, an unusual phenomenon in Northern
Ireland. But it is also supported by plenty of people whose main or only
eoncern is not sectarian religion of any kind but peace in Northern Ireland,
which is Corrymeela’*s sole purpose.

ve wore there for a week. Our seventeen youngsters, from Upper Arlington,
Bexley, CSG, and Academy were, at the moment participating in one of
Corrymeela’s specialties called a “North-South Dialogue.” The idea is simple
enough. Recruit a group of Dublin Catholics, Derry Protestants, and a mixed
group from Belfast, all teenagers, most unemployed, and without nearly as much
expectation or structure as we Americans would prefer, let them spend a
weekend together: listening to music, dancing, talking, maybe even making
friendships. A simple idea, and a radical one because there aren’t many
places for that sort of thing te happen in Ulster.

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The seventeen Presbyterian Preppies from Columbus were receiving an
education they will not forget, and so were the adults. We were attached to a
group called, simply, Helfast Mums. There were about a dozen, from what can
accurately be called an urban slum. They were Catholic, they had a lot of
children; several of their husbands were in prison, under the British-Direct
Rule Intermment policy. The rest were unemployed; several were separated.
Corrymeela invites groups of them up for the weekend: provides child care and
again, without much by way of American obsessive programming, simply provides
the exquisite Luxury of forty-eight hours in which te take walks, talk, or
stay in bed if they wish. These women were beginning their weekend with a bit

of aéioparty. Each had brought eae sack of sandwiches and some liquid
refreshment. In addition to the gin and cuzo, which they seemed to favor,
there were several bottles of wine. They offered - we accepted. After all —

"When in Ballycastle..." you know how that goes.

We talked some, awkwardly at first, then with more comfort. We had been
briefed a bit, and had decided to avoid revealing the fact that two of us were
Presbyterian clergymen as long as possible. We asked, gently and carefully,
about their feelings, and slowly they told us about a society bitterly divided
and a personal life consumed with anger, and a future which offered no hope.

It was June, L981. Bobby Sands, an IRA Provisional, also a member of
Parliament, had died one month earlier in the 4H. Block. of Maze prison in
Belfast. The "blanket men" were in the news: there were more hunger strikers

and encugh random violence in Northern Ireland that my Columbus constituents
wondered about our responsibility, if not our sanity. As the evening wore on,
they began to sing the songs of Ireland, the patriotic, nationalistic music of
protest. One of them said: “Let’s sing one for Bobbie.” They did: it was
sad, and poignant, frightening, and enlightening. It was not about religion.
it was about Ireland and British occupation and religion was never mentioned.
That ended the evening. We saw the women in the morning. They never spoke ta
us. They had discovered, I suppose, that we were Protestant ministers. They
had allowed us to get closer than they or anyone else would understand.

And so, I have continued to watch that unhappy situation — even as the
American press has become bored with it. And a daughter of mine has returned
for a second stint as a volunteer at Corrymeela, and we try to raise a little
money for the work of peacemaking there, and I write regularly to several good
friends.

My interest is also partially familial. Around the 1740's an ancestor of
mine was one of the thousands of Scotsmen who migrated from Glasgow and the

borders, to Belfast, and from there to Pennsylvania. He was part of an
important influx in the 18th century: the Scotch-Irish, builders of canals,
railroads, miners, hardworking, frugal people - deeply committed to law and

order and education. There are 16 million Americans of direct Irish descent
and there are far more Scotch-Irish in this country than in the six counties
of Ulster. They have produced eleven presidents.

And naw a confession. My premise was that when one began to study the
"Troubles" in Northern Ireland, ene would come to the conclusion that someone,
some where made a bad mistake. My further assumption was that the someone was
probably James I. My assumption was precipitated, not by careful historical
research, but by Jack Chester’s secretary who kept calling last summer asking
for atitle. Only an amateur historian would make two assumptions that
simple, and I am here to confess that my study has not led me to conclude that

Page 3

James was any more guilty than a lot of other people. When I came to the
conclusion that my paper was based on a spurious assumption I considered,
frankly, a secret shift to Carter, whose dreams surely went sour, or even
James Watt, whose dreams would provide open season.on a@ paper on sourness.
I’ve decided to stay with James I a bit, whose idea didn’t work, but who is
still. worth knowing. Besides, at that. point I was too heavily invested in him
to change topics.

In 1609 James Vi of Scotland, who was the James J of England, issued a
royal proclamation which read:

"Whereas great scopes and extents of land in the several counties

of Armagh, Tyrone, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh, and Caran are
escheated and come to our hands by the attainder of sundry

traitors and rebels, we considered how much it would advance

the welfare of that kingdom if the said land were planted with
colonies of civil men and well-affected in religion: whereupon
there was a project concerned for the division of said land into
proportions, and for the distribution of the same into undertakers."

There it is: a dream to expand and secure the kingdom, and te pacify the
troublesome Irish papists. Who was this man who so seriously miscalculated —
at the same time he was presiding over the age of Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben
Johnson, and the Authorized Translation of the Bible which still bears his
name?

He was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley, born on June
19, 1566, in a smali room in Edinburgh Castle where today a visitor can see
the initials of mother and son entwined in a carved crest on the ceiling. He
was baptized a Roman Catholic in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle on
December 17, 1566. Elizabeth I of England sent representatives — Protestants
- who waited outside.

Mary married Bothwell soon after, was forcibly separated from her new
husband by a group of nobles on June 15, 1567, incarcerated and never saw her
son again. On the tiny island of Lochleven, under house arrest, she signed
the Acts of Abdicatien in favor of her son. Her relative, Elizabeth I, Queen
of England, eventually had her executed ~ and that is truly another story.
James, in the meantime, at the age of 13 months, was crowned James VI, King of
Scotland, stili at Stirling, but this time in the Protestant Church.

He was educated by a brilliant but cranky old humanist, George Buchanan.
His theological preference was the Calvinism his nation had adopted in 1560,
although his ecclesiastical choice clearly was Anglicanism.

Physically he was a man of medium height, with broad shoulders and bent
legs from childhood rickets which caused him to limp. He was somewhat of a
fanatic about exercise and spent much of his time hunting. A series of wards
saw to his childhood needs: old Buchanan drilled him in lLatin and his
biographers agree that he had everything except the one thing he needed which
was a little love.

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Antonia Fraser speculates that the aridness of his childhood caused him to
fall madly in love the first time affection was offered to hin. It was with a
young man, an emisary from his mother’s French relatives, the Guises.

in June of 15823, James assumed the throne —- at the age of 17. Apparently
his French cousin was a passing fancy, for he traveled to Norway in the middle
of winter to meet and wed his bride Anne, fourteen year old daughter of the
Norwegian King. He spent the winter in Oslo. James Melville observed wryly,
"Having traveled through many woods and wilderness, in the confined frost and
snow...there made good cheer and drank stoutly till spring time.”

The marriage was no charade. There were seven children, of whom three
survived.

James ruled Scotland rather well after the Scottish nobles settled down.
He did a let of hunting, wrote some and, in that Elizabeth had still not
produced an heir, and James had a bit of a claim to the throne, actually began
to court the Crown. He named his eldest daughter after Elizabeth, for
instance.

Elizabeth died March 24, 1603 and .that day James VI of Scotland was
prociaimed James I of England and on April 5 departed on what Dr. Johnson
cynically termed, "The noblest prospect which a Scotsman ever sees — the high
road that leads him to England."

James devised a divine right of king’s doctrine that was offensive to his
Calvinist subjects, kept a court that was, by all standards, unkempt and
vulgar, vigorously disapproved of the use of tobacco, and kept a kind of zoo
at the tower of London.

He proposed the union with Scotland — and then suddenly found himself with
the marvelous opportunity to resolve the centuries-old dilemma the English had
with Ireland. A rebellion of Irish chiefs had been crushed, the Earls Tyrone
and Tyrconnel had fled, the Anglo-Spanish peace relieved his concern about a
Catholic invasion. Even the Irish looked to him hopefully. But history’s
verdict is that Barbara Tuchman was correct. We do not govern well. Antonia
Fraser writes: "Unfortuntely the policy which James thought most likely to
end Ireland’s troubles, that of plantation, turned out to be most likely to
prolong them." ({(p. 146)

He invited British aristocrats, tradesmen, lawyers, farmers to settle and
manage estates in the counties of the North of Ireland. He invited border
Scots, some of his more troublesome subjects to do the work. James was not
slow - even if he was terribly wrong. In one maneuver he planned to transferm
an alien culture inte a little bit of Britain, relieve himself of some of his
more troublesome subjects, and enhance his exchequer by appropriating the
properties of the Scots who immigrated to Ulster. When IT was an exchange
pastor in a village in the border county, near Dumfries in 1978, I baptized —
the child of a Crown agent, who was managing farm land which had come to the
possession of James I. It was a good idea. It simply didn’t work in Ulster.
it still doesn’t. Fraser evaluates, “King James was merely one of a long
series of British sovereigns and leaders who had not the faintest under—
standing of the history, hopes, and fears of the Lrish people.” (p. 147)

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Jonathan Swift, a little closer to the scene, came to a similar conclusion
in 1724. Wrote he: "As to Ireland, the English know little more than they do
of Mexico,--further than that is a country sub ject-.-to the King of England, full
of boggs, inhabited by wild Irish papists..."

Where actually did it begin? How did the English get involved in Ireland
in the first place? At the beginning of the 13th century a Pope of English
origin simply granted Ireland to England...in hopes that England might keep
the Irish a little more attentive to Rome. English kings in the Middle Ages
vere always conscious of the threat from the West. It was Richard II who
actually made the first move, as far as I can determine. “An Irish chieftan
asked his help in resolving a military matter with a rival chief and Richard
was only too happy to oblige...thus beginning an effort of conquest that
continued into the 20th century." (This analysis, and that which follows is
devised from MacEoin, Northern Ireland, Captive of History, p. 110ff)

in their efforts to subjugate and rule Ireland the Norman English had
superior weapons and far more organized and efficient military tradition. But
according to Arnold Toynbee the Irish had a "more powerful secret weapon. Far
Western Christian Civlization...which was stronger, more developed, and deeper
than any culture around."

Now there is a curious and instructive twist to all of this. Trish
culture and the Irish church are tightly interwoven in the Middle Ages...and
the Irish church, in flavor, theology, style, and spirit was rather
independant of Rome. It’s brand of monasticism was uniquely Celtic. Irish

monks married, for instance...the Irish church celebrated Easter on a
different day from the rest of the Roman church. And so it was in the Roman
church's interest - before the Reformation at least, for England to succeed in

conquering the obstreperous Irish - at least to bring them on board
ecclesiasticaLlly.
One scholar notes: "Rome blessed the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland

even before it began. From the beginning every effort was made to destroy the
Trish system of learning and way of life." (p. 118)

By the middie of the 13th century two-thirds of Ireland was controlled by
Engiand...but the Irish fought bitterly and in the North ~ successfully for
another century. In an interesting vignette, Edward Bruce, brother of Robert
the Bruce, King of Scotland, came across and led the Irish effort very
successfully...had himself actually crowned King of Ireland and kept a
relatively independent state for several years. By the 15th century English
contro] and government had dwindled and was effective only in Dublin and
surrounding counties.

And then Henry VIII, whose rule so enormously changed the course of
Western history. Henry turned his ample attention to Ireland. His policy was
simple and as disastrous as James I’s. Henry thought he could make the Irish
English. He was, of course, having his own problems with Rome on the subject
of marriage, church and state, generally. In 1537, Henry instructed his
bishops in Ireland to have each clergy found a school - the purpose of which
was to teach English - an alien and hated tongue. Now Rome, which blessed the
Anglo-Norman conquest in Ireland did a 180 degree turn, realized a deeper
threat, and began to dig in against now Protestant England. Henry contributed
in another way to the passionate Catholicism of the Irish. When the English

Page 6

church broke with Rome, Henry made it Anglican, by, among other things,
changing the language of liturgy from Latin to English. For some reason, he
did not make that change in Ireland. But despising the Irish language, he
could not allow Gaelic Mass, and so curiously the church in Ireland, under
Henry’s pragmatic Protestantism, under political and cultural siege, continued
to speak the language of Rome —- almost as an act of political defiance.

Elizabeth succeeded Henry and under her long reign, during the last half
of the 16th century, English control extended and included the whole country -
except Ulster in the north. And it was under Elizabeth, the Protestant, that
religion became a way of identifying the players in Ireland. A Protestant was
a loyalist. A Catholic was seen to be an enemy of the Crown. Meanwhile the
chieftans in Ulster held out a long time, were defeated - barely - by
Elizabeth's armies. As usual, resistance to the British had a galvanizing
effect on the Irish. The O’Donnels in Donegal, the MacDonnels in Antrim and
the O’Neills in the middle, joined forces and held the British at bay for nine
years, until a blockade finally forced their capitulation. The nobility fled
for their lives to Europe, their extensive estates in the Northern countries
were simply appropriated by Elizabeth and the stage was set for James’ sour
dream.

James’ fateful decision was to complete what Henry VIII and Elizabeth I
had begun, and to do it thoroughly by replacing one culture with another and
in the process eliminating the difficult Ulster problem in the final solution.

Thus the disastrous royal proclamation inviting colonization. Hundreds
took the offer immediately. By 1640 there were 40,000 beligerent Scots
Presbyterians in Ulster. James, no doubt, was glad to be rid of them. In
fact they didn’t amount to much as Presbyterians at first. The Church of
Scotland sent Presbyterian missionaries over to Ulster, as a matter of fact,
and the Scots embraced the Kirk as a little bit of home away from home with
their customery beligerance. In the process they substituted suspicion and
hatred of Rome and the Irish, for their more traditional suspicion and hatred
of the Crown and the English. Besides, one of theirs was now on the British
throne.

The Irish fought the British twice more in the 17th century and lost both
times, and all the while the Roman faith was becoming more and more identified
with Irish culture and with the cause of freedom from the British. The
Catholic Irish were not allowed inside the fortress towns the Protestant
planters built in the north. They were, in addition, banished from the land
they owned and worked. In 1641, the first “Rising” resulted in a Protestant
massacre. Cromwell] came through in 1650 and massacred the Catholics of
Drogheda. After Cromwell, Charles II, a Catholic, nodded in the direction of
his Irish subjects, and his brother James II, got himself ousted by Parliament
in favor of William of Orange, fled to Ireland and opened shop. James II
authorized the Dublin parliament to restore land to former Irish owners. The
Protestants in Ulster, who now had been there for two generations, violentiy
resisted. Now the Catholic armies marched north to crush a Presbyterian
rebellion. Derry resisted a siege for 105 days and produced the raw material
of patriotic legend. William of Orange finally caught James in the north and
won battles at Boyne and Aughrim, all of which became important in Ulster
folk-lore. The dates of July 12, when Orangemen celebrate the battle of Boyne
till August 12, when the Apprentice Boys of Derry reenact the defense of the
city in 1689 - are the infamous marching season in Ulster.

Page 7

What happened when the smoke cleared was predictable but no less tragic.
British ‘mistakes are understandable, but none the less disastrous in their
effect. After the Battle of Boyne and the defeat of the Irish Catholic
rebellion, a series of Penal Laws were enacted, by the Irish parliament in
Dublin, which was exclusively Protestant. The Penal Laws excluded Catholics
from the Armed Forces, judiciary, the legal profession, and from Parliament.
Catholics were forbidden to carry arms or own a horse worth more than five
pounds. In 1697 -all Irish bishops and clergy were banished. Catholics were
forbidden to hold leases on land, or to buy land from Protestants.

The effect of the Penal Laws, of course, was to solidify the deep divide
between Catholics and Protestants, and ultimately to strengthen Irish
Catholicism by giving it a cultural and policital base and a cause to die for.
One of the lessons history suggests is that religion becomes tenacious when
people start dying for it. In any event Cathclic Gaelic culture went
underground and thrived.

The second half of the 18th century produced alliances between
Presbyterians - who have always had a bit of problem squaring their theology
with any monarchy ~ and the Catholics, and the result was a series of Penal
Laws against Presbyterians. In the Wexford Rising of 1787, thirty of my
brother Presbyterian clergy were accused of collusion and three were hanged.
The Orange Orders were formed to challenge the new Presbyterian-Catholic
friendliness and to advocate the Protestant cause in the north.

In 1800, the Catholic population of Belfast was 10%. But in three decades
of furious industrial expansion, the Catholic population rose to 30% and the
Protestants started to get scared. At the same time the Irish Presbyterian
Church, normally at least a rational organization, rejected its liberal wing
which broke away, leaving the church in control of hard-line, Orange Order
types.

The 19th century saw the steady widening of the polarization. Because of
the continuing infusion of British capital, the Industrial Revolution happened
largely in the north - in f[Ireland. For the same reasons the north was
insulated from the potato famines. In 1834 pressure mounted to repeal the
hated Penal Laws. Home Rule was discussed openly, even in Ulster, and then 4
fateful partnership emerged in London: The Conservative Party took up the
cause of Ulster Unionism - i.e. union with Great Britain. That partnership
was characterized by Lord Randolph Churchill’s famous remarks - about
Gladstone, who adopted a position favoring Home Rule, "We’ve got the old man
hooked," and in a speech in Ulster, to a wildly cheering mob of Protestants,

"ister will fight and Ulster will be right.” He was correct, of course, at
least about the fighting. A new Conservative Party position emerged on the
Trish question: Keeping the counties of the north as part of Great Britain

and separate from the Catholic south became a moral and religious crusade. It
was based, not only on a dying Imperialism, but on Protestant fear which could
become a belligerent bigotry ~ and immediately did. Now the Orange Orders
emerged to provide the noise and energy to propel the cause of Union.

On the other side of it, the forces of Home Rule were expressed by the
Fenians — whe were revolutionaries and later the Irish Republic Army. In the
late 19th century Irish Nationalism came into its own and historians generally
agree that the only thing that prevented a full civil war in Ireland was the
First World Ward.

Page 8

The Easter Rising, 1916, began the guerilla war in the south which finally
produced a treaty inl921] between the British government and the political wing:
of the IRA establishing a free Irish State ~— with the exception of the six
counties of Ulster.

The intent, again, was different from what actually resulted. There were
to be two states in Ireland, each with its own Parliament to deal with
domestic matters: each with seats at Westminster, and a Council of Ireland

was to deal with matters of common interest. It never met. Instead, old
county boundries became international borders - and in Northern Ireland the
long and deep hostility began to erupt in violence. The Catholics in Northern

Ireland rejected what were now clearly British, and therefore Protestant
institutions. The police, for instance and the Ulster Special Constabulary,
formed to fight the IRA ~ were almost entirely Protestant. The Education Act
of 1930 established Protestant schools and allowed the Roman Catholics to
sponsor their own Parochial schools, but they would have to raise 50% of the
cost.

The depression was particularly severe in Northern Ireland. In 1933, for
the first time in a century, no ship was launched in Belfast. Between 1930-39
unemployment never fell below 25% and .in the fierce competition for jobs
Protestants won more often than not.

In the meantime, relations between Jreland and Great Britain worsened.
And every time that happened, Catholic Irish in Ulster appeared to be
potentially subversive at worst, disloyal at best.

Gary MacEoin, newspaper man and author, tells how it was. He reports:

"My first experience of the collective frenzy with which the
Orangement each July 12 commemorate the Battle of the Boyne
(1690) was in 1936. That was a quiet year, in contrast with
1935 when the marches had led to three weeks of burning and
wrecking, with the loss of 12 lives, in one of Belfast's worst
outbreaks of sectarian rioting. The bowler-hatted marchers
wore elaborate sashes and collarettes over their dark suits.
Were it not for their stern, set faces, they might pass for a
Shriner convention. The banners recalled past glories, William
of Orange crossing the Boyne, the breaking of the boom as the
siege of Derry was raised. From time to time, a banner saluted
the virtue of temperance, about the only salute it would receive
that day. Union Jacks streamed from windows and were waved by
onlookers. ‘’To hell with the Pope’ was scratched with unimagin
ative monotony on every wall and billboard, the current four—
letter disposition of His Holiness not having then come into
its own. Bands playing partisan tunes whipped marchers and
onlookers into a frenzy of exaltation. The key instrument was
the Lambeg drum, struck with short sticks in such a way as to
cause the drummer’s knuckles to bleed profusely, the mark of a
true professional. In such a context a spark is all that is
needed to start a pogrom." (p. 13-14)

Page $

In Dublin, the Irish Free State established a new consititution in 1937,
changed the name of the nation to Eire, and dropped.out. of .The Commonwealth.
In 1908, the Irish Hierachy had forbidden Catholics to marry non-Catholics and
in the rare cases where exceptions were made, the children must be raised as
Catholics. In 1950 that ecclesiastical provision became the law of the land.
The 1937 Constitution established the special position of the Roman Church in
Irish society as the portector and guardian of the faith. Divorce was
declared illegal, as was the sale of contraceptive devices and provision was
made for strict censorship of books and plays.

The Protestant population of the Republic, which once was 10%, declined —
under those provisions, to 5%: of which 3.7% are Church of Ireland, which is
what the Episcopal Church is called; .6% Presbyterian; and .3% Methodist. The
law requiring raising children as Catholics in fact appears to be working to
eliminate all Protestants, a prospect that does get the attention of those
beligerant Presbyterians in Ulster.

In Northern Ireland the second World War brought great prosperity. And
the fifties and sixties seemed to be decades of hope. The IRA mounted an
offenseive in 1956 which failed to generate much support. It was officially
abandoned in 1962 and the IRA became respectable, deciding to work for
political goals within the system.

And then, in the early sixties the situation changed radically. Trish
nationalism found its voice again in Ulster. The tri-color was flown at a
Belfast political office in 1964, and when a crowd attempted to remove it a
riot followed. At the forefront was one of those unfortunate individuals
whose historical importance is genuine and tragic. His name was lan Paisley,
head of the tiny Free Presbyterian Church, a nasty, unhappy, fundamentalist
sect which is bitterly anti-Catholic and pro-British. Paisley, who was
elected to Parliament, has continued to symbolize Ulster’s agony: a
leadership that is narrow, sectarian, bigoted, and simply inadequate.

In 1967 a Civil Rights movement began within the Catholic community of
Ulster and received international press atteniion. There were marches,
demonstrations, and prodded by Paisley’s vitriolic and vulgar anti-
Catholicism, a strong Protestant counter reaction.

On August 12, 1968, the Protestant Apprentice Boys of Derry, an organ—
ization like the Orange Orders, held a march and were attacked by Derry
Catholics. MacEoin remembers, "The violence of police reactions in Catholic
Bogside produced two important results: The Prime Minister of Ireland, Jack
Lynch, made his famous ‘we will not stand by’ speech and violence spread to
Belfast. In August, the Catholic Lower Falls area was invaded by a hostile
mob of Protestants. Seven persons were killed, 3000 left homeless, and the
Situation was utterly changed.

Great Britain sent the army into Derry on August 14, 1968 and the next day
to Belfast. This time the old wounds between Westminster, Dublin, and Belfast
were reopened in the full view of a world television audience.

The Provisional IRA was formed in January of 1970 and on October 31] of
that year the Provos killed their first British soldier. The Protestants in
Ulster mounted pressure for an aggressive internment policy, which began in
1971, followed by deep resentment and bloody riots. By 1972, 2000 IRA

Page 10

suspects were incarcerated, and in the process Great Britain was accused and
found guilty by the Strasbourg Court, arbiter of human rights in Western
Europe, of five violations for the policy itself and for the way its prisoners
were treated.

in 1972 Westminster suspended the Stormont, Ulster’s Parliament, and began

Direct Rule, which continues today. Sometime in the 70’s the people of
Northern Ireland adjusted to their situation: the world press got bored with
it; the deep polarization in society became institutionalized. The old

Unionist sentiment was expessed in the United Ulster Unionist Council.
Nationalists all vote in the Social Democrat and Labor Party, and parties of
the Center claim only 10-15% of the vote. It doesn’t take long in Ulster to
discover that the middle ground is'a very small territory.

What is it like today? There are only a million and half people in
Ulster, one third of whom live in Belfast. Roman Catholics constitute the
largest religious denomination 35% of the total population. Presbyterians
are next at 29%; Church of Ireland - 24%: Methodist — 5%; others -— 7%. The
most interesting religious statistic, however, is that there are virtually no
atheists. A recent survey in Ulster could turn up only 1200 agnostics and 510
who called themselves atheists.

Religion, unfortunately in this instance, provides tribal identity.
Religion, on either side, is deeply conservative, closed to the outside,
exclusive and absolutely certain of the ultimate truth of its own dogma.
Irish Christianity seems not to have evolved, but to be stuck somewhere in the
16th or 17th century. Irish Catholicism is conservative, in Large measure
unaffected by the liberalizing influences of Vatican II. Presbyterianism, as
well, is not open and liberal. Several years ago when there was discussion of
@ papal visit, a motion nearly passed on the floor of the Presbyterian General
Assembly that ~ should the pope visit, and should the Presbyterians be invited
to an ecumenical event - they weren't going to attend. Neither Roman
Catholics nor Protestants are enthusiastic about ecumenical movement, in fact
they are suspicious of it.

In Christians in Ulster, a book on the affect of religion on the Troubles,
the authors conclude that while it is not fundamentally a religions dispute,
the bitter religious polarization has prevented the process of assimilation
and healing from taking place. The simple discouraging of inter-marriage, for
instance, has kept the distance wide.

There are two school systems, each state supported. The public schools,
which are Protestant; and the Parochial, Catholic schools. Catholics may
attend Protestant schools. None do. We visited both: were warmly received:
our youngsters talked with their peers on each side; in Ballyeastle, the
schools are literally across the street from one another: the Catholic High
School was newer and cleaner and better equipped. It was not possible tea
visit them both, however, without knowing deeply the deep division in the
culture. One can imagine how radically differently Irish history must be
taught in the two schools.

Page ll

Culturally, the bigotry continues. Tt ais not a particularly pleasant
tepic, but it is very much a part of the problem. Protestant paramilitary
organizations thrive although they are largely ignored by the American Press.
There is something about IRA viclence that receives our immediate attention —
as blowing up the Prime Minister’s seaside hotel, or Lord Mountbatten’s ship,
should. but in pure numbers, Protestant paramilitary’s assasinate twice as
many Catholics as the FRA assasinates Protestant victims.

Sociologists are beginning to see a relationship between the cultural
bigotry of Ulster and the racism with which our country has had to deai.
Bernard Nossiter, correspondant for the Washington Post observes, "Upper class
Protestants have a contempt for Catholics that borders on racism." and quotes
as typical a contractor who was a member of the Ulster Defense Association:
“TRA lazy Fenian bastards don’t want to work ~- just want to stay in their
bloody pubs and drink. There is no such thing as a good Catholic.”

Professor Fred Graham, Michigan State University, has done a fascinating
study of the music of Ulster and concludes that the Catholic songs are
political, telling of MIreland’s struggle to be free from England, while
Protestant songs combine loyalty to the Crown with derogatory references to
Rome.

My daughter Susan, now a medical student at Ohio State University, worked
at Corrymeela last summer. JI asked her to send me some material for this
speech. She sent me two popular Protestant songs. The first is "The Sash."

"It is old but it is beautiful
And the ecclors they are fine.

It was worn in Devy, Aughrin,
Enniskillen, and the Eoyne.

My father wore it in his youth,

Tn the bygone days of yore.

And its on the 12th I love to wear
The sash my father wore."

The second is "The Boys from Derry," a charming little ditty so
scatological about the Pope and the Virgin Mary that Susan was embarrassed to
send it, and I to read it.

Where will it end? If history is a teacher - it probably won’t. But it
may subside, particularly if something resembling an economic recovery could
happen in Ulster. Unfortunately, there is little about Ulster that commends
itself to capital investment or even tourism . Mr. Delorean’s escapades have
not helped, but when you ask an Ulsterman how Americans can help, the answer
is to stop giving money to either Ian Paisley’s bigoted Protestant organi-
zation or the IRA and find some way to make that money work in the Ulster
economy.

The degree of foreign involvement in The Troubles is a question mark.
Karl Marx was fascinated with the possibilities of revolution. At one time
Castro was nodding at Belfast and Colonel Kaddafi bragged about supporting the
IRA. Weapons from Eastern bloc countries have shown up in the IRA, but so
have plenty of American arms and explosives.

Page ]2

The best hope seems to be some kind of Rhodesian settlement, with a
several year period in which a representative #overnment would be formed.
Britain would withdraw and the six counties would ultimately reunite with the
rest of Ireland. For that to happen two very difficult hurdles have to be
overcome. The Republic of Ireland must back away from some of its more overt
Catholicism, say in divorce laws and the sale of birth control devices, and
Great Britain must accept responsibility for Ulster refugees — Protestants who
would elect to leave.

Donald Fraser, 75 year old, former Information Officer of the Presbyterian
Church of Ireland and a personal friend, has told me that some kind of reunion
must come — but that British withdrawal in the present would result in puch
violence if not civil war. Fraser wrote:

"The violence continues but in different forms..,The sounds coming
from Downing Street are not encouraging. One of the positive
elements has been the number of groups set up to give thought in
depth to preblems arising from the troubles. Of course the seeds
will take time to germinate but they are sown in hope that they
will flourish and bear fruit."

On the religious side of it ~- churches need to act like churches - and
become signs of a kingdom in which fear and enmity are overcome. One would
hope for less sectarianism and more ecumenism.

And so back to Caorrymeela, where it all began for me: several white
buildings on a gorgeous hillside overlooking the Irish sea, where people of
all faiths and none are invited to come to learn to live together, Until the
structures change and churches start acting like churches, I’11 look there,
and places like it, for the hope that human beings can live together. Thus
the final importance of the travail of these few people, in those six small
counties. History has been unkind to the people who must live in Ulster
teday. Jimmy’s dream went sour and worse. Antionia Fraser concludes that
"King James was merely one of a long series of British sovereigns and leaders
who had not the faintest understanding of the history, hopes, and fears of the
Irish people." But if the decade of the 80’s is teaching us anything, it is
that we no longer have the luxury of carrying yesterday’s mistakes into
tomorrow. ’Spaceship Earth" is smaller than anyone realized. And the first
item on the agenda, for all of us, is the simple task of living together in
the present so that there will be a future.

That happens, I trust, when peole of good will try to understand one
another...and I thank you for listening as I have tried to enhance that
process this evening.

Page 13

Bibliography

Beckett, J. C., The Making of Modern Jreland.

Cobain, Robert, A Protestant View of Northern Ireland, Commonwealth, 3/11/83.

Coles, Robert, Ulster’s Children Waiting for the Prince of Peace, The Atlantic
Monthiy, 12/80.

Darby, John, Conflict in Northern Ireland: The Development of a Polarized
Community.

Fraser, Antonia, King James VI of Scotland: I of England.

Gallagher, E. and Worrall, Stanley, Christians in Ulster.

Graham, Fred, The Two Songs of Ireland, The Christian Century, 6/13/83.

MacEoin, Gary, Northern Ireland: Captive of History.