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Ireland is today facing a political as well as an economic crisis, with the government under growing pressure to resign. The inflaming of passions is all too understandable. The sorry [...]

It is not surprising that the Irish government has condemned the change of mind of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which finally allowed the Orangemen in Northern Ireland to march through a Roman Catholic area of Portadown, giving in to the strength of the Unionists. Southern Ireland has always taken a strong stand against violence and threatened violence. British governments have consistently maintained bitterness and bigotry in Northern Ireland by allowing bullying, violence and threats to overpower them.

There is still a very wide gap between nationalists and the UK government about the future of Northern Ireland. This was highlighted recently in reactions to the Mitchell report on the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. Little progress will now be made unless the Mitchell principles can be accepted by all parties. It is vital for talks to take place soon on the issue of a possible role for an electoral process.

Psychological factors are the main reason why the Irish voted so narrowly in favour of divorce in a referendum on the issue in Nov. 1995. All five of Ireland's political parties supported the lifting of the country's ban on divorce, while opinion polls early in the campaign had shown 69% of people in favour. However, not only is it considerably easier to argue passionately against divorce than for it, but it was not until the last week, when support for divorce had fallen to 52%, that the political parties' pro-divorce leadership began offering a powerful positive presentation.

A report in the Times on Feb. 1, 1995, based on a leaked Anglo-Irish framework document, is not only wrong in claiming that proposed North-South structures would give the Irish Republic executive powers over Northern Ireland, but ignores the benefits of North-South co-operation. The Foyle Fisheries Commission has been carrying out delegated executive functions in both jurisdictions for more than 40 years without a hint of political controversy. The Irish government is already generally better than its British counterpart at representing the interests of Northern Ireland's farmers in Europe.

Nationalism in the South of Ireland underwent a transformation during the 1970s and 1980s, with people coming to see the Irish nation in terms of the whole country and all its people, rather than supporting separatist ideas centred on the population's Catholic Gaelic element. Nevertheless, Northern nationalists fell threatened by this shift from an exclusive to an inclusive form of nationalism. Revulsion against the IRA has led people in the South to distance themselves from nationalists in Northern Ireland, but the latter must not be made to feel that the people of the South have lost all sympathy for their community.

Churchmen and liberals in the Irish Republic have taken up entrenched positions on a range of moral anethical issues concerning marriage, the family, contraception and abortion and the basis of these positions is rarely questioned by either side. The result of the Church's intransigence has been the gradual erosion of its moral credibility, yet no alternative organised system of values exists.

The most intractable political problems are, arguably, those involving a conflict of rights. A classic example is the Middle East where Israel's right to exist in peace and security has […]