Ruth Dudley Edwards

David Trimble, Northern Ireland's first minister from 1998 to 2002 and leader of the Ulster Unionist party from 1995 to 2005, has died aged 77. In 1998, Ruth Dudley Edwards wrote about the Unionist leader from a Catholic's perspective. On a wall in David Trimble's Westminster office is a cartoon of a bunker, complete with tin-hatted soldiers poking their rifles over the sandbags. I was dealing with someone with an intellectual life outside academia and politics 'Ulster,' says the caption. 'Probably the best lager in the world.' I laughed when I saw it, and Mr Trimble grinned and gestured to a 1929 election poster behind his desk, featuring Lord Craigavon glowering over the legend, 'Ulster. What we have we hold.' That's here in case people think I've gone soft.

Prince Philip's death presented Sinn Fein with a particular challenge, given that the IRA murdered his beloved uncle. 'I am sorry that happened. Of course, that is heartbreaking,' said the party's leader Mary Lou McDonald this weekend. But if the words sounded sincere, don't be fooled. Sinn Fein learnt a difficult lesson back in 2011, when the Queen and Prince Philip visited, the first time for a century that a British monarch set foot in Dublin. Back then, they completely misjudged Irish public opinion and refused to participate, ending up looking like kids outside a sweet shop with noses pressed to the window. The Queen got an approval rating in the Republic of more than 90 per cent and Sinn Fein were accused of being dinosaurs. There was to be no repeat this time.

I have been so unremitting and harsh a critic of the IRA and Sinn Fein since the early 1990s, that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness tried hard to have me silenced. Sinn Fein still try to shut me up with the help of libel lawyers, and an army of Shinnerbots hurl insults at me on social media, often begging me to die. I have also worked for years with organisations representing victims of terrorism, including Innocent Victims United, whose spokesman, Kenny Donaldson, recently called the Brexit Party’s endorsement of Claire Fox ‘appalling and indeed borderline contemptuous’ because of her past membership of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) which supported the Provisional IRA, and her refusal to ever account for this.

Ireland has given its own twist to the populist uprisings across Europe, with its election ushering in a grim time for Anglo-Irish relations. The results from Saturday's poll – in which Sinn Fein took 24.5 per cent of the vote; Fianna Fáil, 22 per cent; and Fine Gael, 21 per cent – could also cause serious complications in the Brexit negotiations. In so enthusiastically switching its support to Sinn Fein (the party won 13.8 per cent of the vote in 2016), Ireland is endorsing a party that pretends to be democratic, left-wing and progressive but still effectively operates internally along militaristic lines, tolerating no dissent from its elected representatives.

Twitter is a useful safety valve. I’ve been enjoying some reactions to a bizarre performance last night on Channel 4 News by a beefy chap in a balaclava – whose identity was protected by a weird voice-over, more Scottish than Irish. He claimed to speak for the New IRA, the few hundred supporting the most recent manifestation of those criminals of the violent-republican persuasion who fight for what they call Irish freedom. They do so by the traditional methods perfected by the Provisional IRA: murdering, mutilating, torturing, intimidating, administering community discipline by kneecapping and beating – all of which they blame on the Brits.

I’ve just had a joyful phone call from Kevin Myers, one of the very few Irish journalists who was on the ‘No’ side.  I was fearing the Irish vote would just be ignored, but Kevin, rarely an optimist, convinced me that the Irish electorate won’t stand for being told – as in the case of their vote against Nice - to vote again and give the right answer; and the turn-out was so high that it legitimizes a very clear result.  What’s more, the Irish Taoiseach is not popular and times are hard, so riding roughshod over the voters is not an easy option. This is not a good time to be a Eurocrat.  Even they cannot ignore that the Irish reflect public opinion across the continent.

[Many thanks to Ruth Dudley Edwards, who'll be covering the Irish referendum for Coffee House over the next few days.  Here's her first post - Pete Hoskin]  I haven’t seen so many confusing posters since Beirut in the early 1990s.  They are layered on every lamppost in Dublin.  The Yes lobby’s contributions are pious and vacuous and unwisely have photographs of politicians – an unpopular group at the moment.  ‘Europe.  Let’s be at the heart of it’ urges the Fine Gael offering, which features the EPP-ED cute little logo of stars inside a heart.  ‘Good for Ireland  Good for Europe’ say Fianna Fail.