When the Belfast Agreement was endorsed more than two years ago, the Association asked itself whether, in an era when inclusive coalition government was mandatory in Northern Ireland, and when elaborate structures were being put in place at government level to promote and develop cross-border contacts and relations, there was any longer any need for an Association founded to foster cultural, economic and social relations.

The answer the Association gave itself was that there was indeed such a need.  When the Association was set up in 1938 the need was much more obvious; there was an almost total dearth of official cross-border contact, and within Northern Ireland relations between unionism and nationalism were both distant and poor. 

The Association was not set up to occupy some vague middle ground.  It was founded by politically active unionists in the north working with equally politically active nationalists in the south, not to solve the Irish problem, but to enable the island to live with it.  Initially politics were not part of its concern, hence the rather cumbersome title.  But very rapidly it became clear that politics touch everything, and that you cannot foster cultural, economic or social relations without discussing politics.  The founders soon realised that what the Association was about was a major campaign of mutual education - of working to help opposing sides know about each other, and to know about each other's perspectives and concerns.

Today the Association still includes people who are politically active unionists and nationalists, and also, thank goodness, people who would call themselves neither.  But if we think we now know each other very well, and understand all viewpoints, then I would ask you to consider two or three points which have arisen in the course of the past two days at our conference.

On Friday night Ruairi Quinn, leader of the Labour Party, and one of the ablest and least nationalistic of southern politicians, delivered an address that was in many ways a critical analysis of traditional political nationalism in Ireland.  Clearly some people present thought it was too critical.  At one point Mr Quinn made an assertion to the following effect:  that in amending Ar5ticles 2 and 3 of its Constitution, the Irish nation had done what no other European nation had ever done - it had formally ceded its claim to part of its national territory.  This, he suggested, was an act of maturity and generosity that was not fully appreciated by all.

No one commented on that assertion; no one fell off his chair laughing.  But let me assure you that to some of our members, and to a large number of people in Northern Ireland, possibly a majority, such an assertion is more than slightly ridiculous. To such people the amendments to Articles 2 and 3 merely modified a spurious, illegal claim to the territory of a neighbouring state which had never been part of any Irish national territory, and which was certainly contrary to international law, at variance with the Helsinki Final Act, and against the fundamental spirit of the European Union.

I am not here arguing a case for or against the assertion; I am simply reminding you that the point of the Irish Association is not to do that, but to remind those who agree with Mr Quinn that there is a totally contrary viewpoint, and in turn to inform these latter people of Mr Quinn's perception.

My second example came from Mr Denis Haughey, of the SDLP, who added, to a generally critical discussion of nationalism in Europe, and its dangers, the comment that while he agreed with much of what had been said, 'Irish nationalism is, of course, different'.  Well, ha ha, is it?  Mr Haughey, no doubt, could have produced argument to support his assertion, but he did not do so.  And again, to many of our members, and to many people in Northern Ireland, such a remark is just laughable.

Again my point is not to start a debate on whether or not Irish nationalism is distinct from other nationalisms, but to remind you that while no one laughed out loud at Mr Haughey, or told him he was talking nonsense, that was precisely the reaction of some of our members.  It is the function of the Association to bring together both those who say such things, and those who think such things are plain daft.

The Association, as such, has no views of its own on political matters.  But that does not mean it exists to pretend that all views are worthy of equal esteem.  At times we can be too polite.  On Friday night Denis Haughey did us a favour when, in a genuine fit of anger, he denounced any suggestion that terrorists who had bombed and killed in this island over the past 30 years had been driven to such acts by circumstances, by acts of or a sense of injustice.  It is perhaps chastening to think that it took one of our guests to remind us of the need for plain speaking.

(Did you notice how our speakers, and indeed our members from the floor, fell clearly into two categories - those who talked about the Good Friday Agreement, and those who talked about the Belfast Agreement.  Nationalists used the former, non-nationalists the latter.)

Our topic for the conference was, of course Cross Channel Currents, and we were seeking to explore the impact on relations between the UK and Ireland, and on Northern Ireland, of devolution within the UK.  We had very useful contributions from two gracious Scottish ladies - Elizabeth Meehan and Shona Robison.  Professor Meehan outlined both the mechanisms for devolution, and its limitations and initiated a discussion of the British-Irish Council, suggesting its unpromising start did not mean it did not have considerable potential.

Miss Robison, an Scottish National Party Member of the Scottish Parliament, refined the meaning of nationalism in today's world, declaring herself not a separatist, and placing her type of nationalism very much in the area of interdependence, not independence.  Our two Northern politicians, Dermott Nesbitt, and Denis Haughey, made lively and generally optimistic contributions.  Mr Nesbitt gave us a new definition of politics clearly learned in the hard school of northern negotiations.  They are, he suggest, not the Art of the Possible, but the Art of Choosing between the Unpalatable and the Disastrous.

I could not help pondering on the meaning of unpalatable.  We are given palates and a sense of taste to help us guard against swallowing that which is not good for us.  If something is unpalatable, that is nature's way of telling us it may be poisonous, and may kill us - which is precisely what some of Mr Trimble's critics in northern unionism think of the unpalatable Belfast Agreement.  That thought may help answer the concerns of some of our questioners from the floor who could not understand why Mr Trimble is under such threat from his own side.

Denis Haughey spoke of the European dimension to devolution and to relations within these islands, quoting, as is mandatory on such occasions, from John Hume to the effect that we live in a post-nationalist age.  He spoke optimistically of a Europe of the Regions, and very optimistically of the impact of EU membership on the Irish state.  It had, he said, been a hugely maturing experience for the Republic.  As other speakers had noted as achievements of the modern Irish state the export worldwide of phoney public houses, and the gift to world culture of a new form of quasi-American chorus-line dancing, I wondered.

Arthur Aughey, of the University of Ulster, took the discussion several steps further in consideration of identity, nationality and the political organisation of society, noting differing degrees of the accommodation of identity within the framework of the state.  Over the years in Northern Ireland, he said, governments had tried to transform debate on these issues from absolutes, to one of degrees of accommodation.  The point of the Belfast Agreement, he said, had been to find a mutually acceptable political code to handle these issues.  He said that was the object of the Agreement, but did not go as far as to say it had achieved that objective.  One could not help but remember that the Agreement itself is founded on absolutes, requiring members of the NI Assembly publicly to declare themselves nationalist or unionist.

Jim Devanny, of the Ulster-Scots Agency, brought us down with a bump to the level of regional identities and cultures and the need to accommodate them too.  His claim that Ulster-Scots deserved full and total equality with all other cultures in the island was deemed, by one of our members who shall be nameless, codswallop.  A lively discussion ensued, largely sceptical as to Ulster-Scots claim to be a living language, or a language at all.

I think one general point to emerge from the conference has been the need to refine, or modify the concept of the nation. It is a concept which was consolidated in an earlier age, and which has brought us two world wars and a seemingly permanent Irish problem.  Listening to the discussions two possible scenarios suggested themselves as to the events which gave rise to the theme of the conference. 

The first is that devolution in the UK generally and in Belfast in particular is an earnest attempt to promote new ways of thinking about identity, and to divorce the idea of the nation, or at least distance it, from that of the political unit, the state.  The second, less benign scenario, is that both devolution in Scotland and Wales, and in Northern Ireland, were, in fact, short term, almost panic measures, designed to placate or defuse nationalist, rather than to confront it.

I regret that our discussions stopped short of challenging the whole concept of the nation, as one which, if it ever had any validity, has none now in the modern world.  The irony is that this discredited concept of the nation is still at the heart of the Belfast Agreement, and of the Irish Constitution as modified following the Agreement.

(All the above material is copyright to the Irish Association; comments relating to website design to Roy Johnston rjtechne@iol.ie; comments relating to content to Austin Finnerty afinn@iol.ie)

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