Andrew McQuillan

Drumcree Parish Church on the outskirts of Portadown in County Armagh is what comes to mind when thinking of Winston Churchill’s comment about the ‘dreary steeples’ of Northern Ireland. A drab Church of Ireland outpost on a hill, it was catapulted into global consciousness in the 1990s when it provided the backdrop to one of the most vicious battles in Ulster’s kulturkampf. On one side, bowler-hatted Orangemen of the Portadown District, who, following a service at the church, would then process down the Garvaghy Road – the traditional route, as the late David Trimble put it – back into the centre of Portadown to conclude their parade.

In the decade since the vote to leave the European Union, arguably no issue has consumed more energy, column inches, political capital and careers than how to solve the problem of Northern Ireland. It was on that narrow, jagged border between North and South that the substantive skirmishes took place between the UK and EU on what their future relationship would look like. While Michel Barnier and Lord Frost arguing the toss over the finer points of agri-food regulation may lack the lustre of the Battle of the Boyne or the romantic connotations of 1916, it was no less significant a moment in Northern Ireland’s history.

Monday’s alleged attempted beheading in North Belfast was not the first time an act of brutality has taken place in the area. During the Troubles, it was one of the most violent and dangerous parts of Northern Ireland. Robert Curtis, the first British soldier to be killed in the Troubles, was shot by the IRA in New Lodge. North Belfast was also the grim stage for many of the brutal sectarian killings carried out by the Shankill Butchers. In North Belfast, the loyalist ceding of ground to nationalists has been compounded by the impact of immigration It is a deeply deprived part of the city and the population shifts and turmoil of the late 1960s and early 70s turned it into an ethnic and confessional maze.

The marching season – when a section of Northern Ireland’s unionist community take to the streets to commemorate the triumph of William of Orange against James II – has always been a useful barometer of the Ulster loyalist mood.  Is the bonfire in bad taste? Yes. But should the people who erected it have to endure insufferable opprobrium from those who justify Kneecap telling their audience to ‘kill your MP’? Certainly not From the 1960s, when Ulster Unionist MPs were barracked for their leadership’s dalliances with ecumenism, all the way to the 1980s and 90s when the right to march in certain areas came to the fore, Orange gatherings have given a sense of what the rank and file feel about Northern Ireland.

Bankrupt councils, the imminent collapse of Thames Water, prison overcrowding and a row with unions over public sector pay are some of the unwelcome prospects facing Keir Starmer if he wins the election. Sue Gray, the Labour leader's chief of staff, has compiled a so-called 'shit list' of such things which could derail any potential Labour government in the early days of its tenure in Downing Street. There's another problem to add to the list: the prospect of Sinn Fein triumphing in Northern Ireland and becoming the Province’s largest party at Westminster. Northern Ireland will be the main source of constitutional angst A shambolic DUP campaign could easily end up handing Sinn Fein victory.

Simon Harris, the anointed successor to the outgoing Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, has quite the in-tray. Harris, who was the only candidate in Fine Gael's party leadership race, will become Ireland’s youngest prime minister on 9 April when the Irish parliament, the Dáil, resumes after its Easter break. One of the most pressing tasks he faces is trying to rebuild a semi-decent relationship with the unionists of Northern Ireland, such is the noxious legacy of his predecessor.  Harris is identikit to Varadkar in many ways Speaking in Athlone last weekend, where the 37-year-old described his new role as the 'absolute honour' of his life, Harris claimed that UK-Irish relations were in a much better position compared with a year previously. Really?

The departure of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach yesterday should really be marked by Irish nationalists with elaborate memorials and tributes in Dublin, on a par with those for the founders of the Irish state. This smooth-talking politician achieved more in one dinner than so-called freedom fighters did over 20 years  Despite the ignominious manner of his departure, having been conclusively told where to go by a chunk of the Irish population in a recent referendum designed to change fundamental elements of the constitution, Varadkar achieved something which most Irish leaders desire deep down: he managed to stiff the Brits.

While Michelle O’Neill and Emma Pengelly, the First and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, were in Washington last week for their annual St Patrick’s Day pat on the head from the Biden administration, a more subversive gathering was taking place in Kells, a small village in Country Antrim.  Traditional Unionist Voice, the party fronted by Jim Allister, was holding its annual conference. For most observers this would fail to register, but the announcement that the TUV has entered into a pact with Reform UK – including running agreed candidates at the general election in Northern Ireland – brought it wider attention.

The resumption of devolution in Northern Ireland – scheduled for tomorrow after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) reached a deal with the UK Government earlier this week – marks a big moment: for the first time in the history of Northern Ireland, there will be a nationalist First Minister. Sinn Fein, a party still viewed by the security services as being in lockstep with the IRA, became the largest party at the 2022 Assembly Election. As a result, their leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, is entitled to be nominated as the Province’s First Minister. Irish nationalists and republicans are now masters of a state designed for their exclusion.

Is the Sinn Fein star starting to wane? Support for the party has hit its lowest level for four years according to a poll for the influential Business Post newspaper. While Sinn Fein still remains the most popular party in the Republic, it has dropped seven points since October 2023. Sinn Fein can only be all things to all people for so long A reason for the loss of support has been its prevarication around the question of immigration; riots gripped Dublin in late November after an attack by an Algerian man on three children in the heart of the city. Since then, the so-called ‘land of a thousand welcomes’ has grappled with arson attacks on asylum seeker hotels and seen the government reduce welfare benefits and accommodation for Ukrainian refugees.

Once upon a time, a young unionist politician marched out of a talks process. Recalling the incident later, he said: 'I asked myself the question, could I walk out of here and go down to my constituency, the people of Lisburn, look them in the eye and say this is a good deal. I could not do that in all conscience.' That politician was Sir Jeffrey Donaldson speaking about Good Friday 1998, unable to support his then Ulster Unionist party leader David Trimble as he prepared to sign the Belfast Agreement. Donaldson then devoted his energies to championing the irascible anti-Agreement wing of unionism, monstering Trimble and chipping away at the Ulster Unionists before he defected in 2003 to the DUP.

As South Africa presented its case accusing Israel of genocide to the International Court of Justice, the presence of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in and around the Hague court gave a flavour of the calibre of those willing this case on. It was predictable that the South African government’s championing of this cause would ignite the ardour of the left. Quoting Nelson Mandela, the Labour MP Zarah Sultana took to X (formerly Twitter) to say with certainty that South Africa’s case against Israel was 'devastating'.

In the period between Christmas and New Year archives in both Belfast and Dublin are opened and documents are declassified. This regularly reveals some of the creative thinking which has been expended on the Northern Ireland problem over the years.  Suggestions have included staging an Old Firm duel between Rangers and Celtic in Belfast prior to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and have the Glasgow teams play in the opposing side’s kits.  Relocating millions of Hong Kong citizens to the province ahead of its transfer to China was an example of blue sky thinking mooted in the Thatcher era. Such was the quagmire of Ulster, politicians and their advisors would regularly grasp for the surreal.

The situation in Dublin yesterday – in which five people were injured in a knife attack in the heart of the city, resulting in a riot and violent clashes with the police – was to the untrained eye reminiscent of Belfast from days gone by. Speculation about the nationality of the attacker fuelled the scenes of violence which took place last night and that has led to condemnatory tutting. After all, Ireland’s national myth is tied into tales of immigration and welcoming. A riot over immigration in its capital city contradicts the stories Ireland tells the world about itself. The instinct, almost reflex reaction of the establishment, was to deploy the term ‘far right’.

The data breach at the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which has seen the personal details of all serving officers and just under 2,500 civilian staff accidentally released as part of a response to a Freedom of Information request, is the sort of grotesque, IT foul-up normally reserved for the realms of satire like The Thick of It.  There is a slim chance that any officers in the Province will be laughing. The attempted murder of DCI John Caldwell in front of his young son in Fermanagh earlier this year underlined acutely that dissident republicans hellbent on killing police officers ‘haven’t gone away you know’, to quote Gerry Adams.