Ireland’s Wars: Tomorrow

Well, here we are, the end of the road, or rather a look at what lies beyond it. I’ll save some “closing” thoughts on Ireland’s Wars (in the quote marks because this series is not over really) for the conclusion, but for now, I want to engage in some hypothetical analysis about how the scope of this series might change for the island of Ireland, Republic and the North, as time goes by into the future. Nothing ever really stays the same, and the current position of Ireland, as discussed in the last entry, is liable to change hugely depending on circumstances. But does that extend to regular threats to either state, or are such threats to be examined more in terms of what might be happening internally?

What national threats, of war or other actions, could Ireland face in the future? The obvious answer many will jump to is Russia, if that entity was ever brought to the point of a major armed confrontation with Europe. Ireland would have no legal obligation to join its brethren in the European Union in war in the event of that happening of course, though it would be naïve in the extreme to think that we could stay completely aloof from such a conflict at the same time. Our geographical location, as ever our strongest defence, would make us a low priority target for most of the Russian military, though any naval dimension to such a conflict would have the potential to play out in areas of the Atlantic Ocean that might be a little too close for comfort. The performance of the Russian military in Ukraine, where expectations of a rapid overthrow of Kyiv turned into a grisly stalemate, has altered the perception of that force somewhat, and the idea of Russian forces engulfing Europe in rapid order is probably fanciful. But that is an analysis based on the use of conventional weapons, and not nuclear arms, that Russia has in abundance, as do several major European nations. The idea of Ireland being actively engaged in such a war seems unlikely, but such things would have an enormous and devastating effect on every facet of Irish life. But all that is based on the idea of Russia being willing to go to war in Europe, and presumably then also with the United States, and in the event of such a conflict it feels as if Ireland’s role would be small to the point of being superfluous. Of course if Ireland was directly attacked by Russian forces in some manner, then our involvement in a conflict would become far more likely (though I suppose not inevitable).

It is difficult to imagine any other such threats emerging in the future. Ireland’s relationship with the United Kingdom may be strained by a myriad of factors in the comings years a decades – the distance between the UK and the EU, developments in Northern Ireland, immigration matters – but the idea of those problems resulting in a state of war is hard to credit. You could say the same about any other number of European countries. Ireland being drawn into a conventional war with another nation seems like the kind of fictional scenario that would require a total sea-change in terms of how things operate to become something likely to happen, thankfully.

Something more in the realms of reality would be internal threats, namely those connected to the Troubles. The Good Friday Agreement and everything that happened after has helped to reduce the violence in Northern Ireland to a point where it can be treated more as an exceptional nuisance when it does occur, and not as an existential threat to to either Northern Ireland or the Republic. But that could change. Sectarian tensions could be provoked back to the point of continuous violence, paramilitary groups could become far more active and gain popular backing depending on the circumstances. Events like Brexit have shown how the paradigm can be changed, and while political violence has not been a significant consequence of Brexit, other incidents in the future well could be.

And perhaps there is none more dangerous, potentially, than the possibility of reunification. It seems more likely than ever that such a thing is now more in the realms of the medium-term than just an idle concept, with nationalist representatives in a majority position in Stormont, and Sinn Fein as strong as it has ever been in the Republic. Given current demographic trends, it seems likely that the conditions for a border poll will be met at some point in the not-too-distant future, perhaps in as little as a decade. When that moment comes, as mandated by the Good Friday Agreement, it is an event that is very liable to seriously stoke all of the tensions inherent in Northern Irish society. What comes after a successful vote, when Irish reunification moves into the realms of imminent, even more so.

I can put it no simpler than to say that a very large swath of the unionist community within Northern Ireland will never accept reunification under any circumstances, no matter how large the majority in favour (and consider the divide in society that would result in the event of a narrow victory), and no matter what subsequent concessions to their community, like self-government within a federalised Ireland, are made. Such a segment might well be propelled to express that denial in the form of violence, whether it was coordinated or uncoordinated. It has happened before, and there is little to suggest that it could not happen again. What form that violence would take seems obvious enough: riots, shootings, bombings, etc, seem likely. Much less sure would be the response: would a new unified Irish state attempt to deal with such an issue with constabulary means, or would it resort to a military one? What would such a war look like, and how could it end? How far would the government of a unified Ireland be willing to go to suppress violent internal dissent? How would the the British react to such things, to people that will probably retain British citizenship being treated at least in some form as an enemy by another power? How would nationalists within unionist-dominated self-governing areas react to their circumstances? These are difficult questions, but now more than ever they need to be considered. Brexit was at least partly the mess that it became because those advocating leaving the EU had no clear idea for what that process would look like. Pertinently, the men and women who fought for the idea of “the Republic” between 1916 and 1922 all had very different ideas for just what that Republic was meant to be. In both instances, that lack of clarity resulted in subsequent anger, disillusionment and discord. Irish reunification seems likely to also be such an event, unless those advocating for it are able to present a unified approach to what a united Ireland looks like, and somehow find a way to prevent unionist resistance from turning violent.

Of course Ireland has other problems that it needs to either deal with or prepare to deal with, some of which I have touched on before, but all of which have the potential to have an enormous impact on Ireland’s geopolitics and military capability. There is the growing rise of far-right politics in Ireland, Europe and the world, coming as it does with violent agitation, disrespect of established democratic processes and the dangers of growing totalitarianism. A far-right government in Ireland, or in a neighbour (more than Ireland has had to put up with I mean) could shift things considerably in the future. Then there is the almost predictable economic turmoil that comes with the capitalist financial model that dominates the world, the vagaries and instability of which has badly effected Ireland in the past, and may do so again. There are the things that are impossible to predict but devastating in their consequences, like global pandemics. And of course there is the worst of the lot, arguably, the growing spectre of climate change and all that it could possibly wreck on a country on the margins of Europe, whose weather and everything connected to it – that is, well, everything – could be radically altered in the coming years and decades. It is not hard to imagine a future where Ireland is beset by a combination or all of these things to some degree.

Lastly, there is the future of the Irish military. At present, the force is in something of a transitionary state: it remains small, and there remains a debate about just how big it should be, and what its purpose is. It’s use on peacekeeping deployments like those of UNIFIL and in Syria has been questioned, and it seems likely enough that future deployments might be of a smaller scale when they happen at all, though that state of affairs is also subject to change of course. If we are to take a lesson from the past in trying to determine the future, then it seems likely to me that the Irish Defence Forces will remain an awkward segment of the state: perpetually under-funded and under-manned, praised to the hilt for its performance in peacekeeping and other missions, but also liberally questioned as to whether it should really exist at all.

So here we are. To be clear, Ireland’s Wars is not coming to an end just yet. I’m going to be taking a break from the series for a little while, but I am planning a two-pronged approach to a continuation. In the first instance, I’m going to begin the painstaking job of going over all previous entries one-by-one to do a long awaited clean-up, firstly in terms of grammar and spelling correction where applicable, but also to expand some things out and re-write others into a nice form. I’ve been doing this series for over twelve years now, and I like to think that I have gotten better at writing between 2012 and now. The other thing will be fill-in entries, to include information and commentary on things that I either missed in the regular run, or that I feel now deserve to be split off from other entries. I have no firm list of what those things will be, but it is my intention at the very least to add several new entries right at the start of the series, in which I note I have some fairly significant gaps. Which is all to say that while Ireland’s Wars will be in a different form and with a different release schedule, it’s not going away just yet. I have other projects in mind for the future of an historical bent, but will discuss those at a later time.

I want to take the opportunity here, once again, to thank all those who have read my words over the last decade and change, for those who subscribed to read more and for those who left either positive comments or constructive criticism (not so much the other commenters, but that’s what the delete button is for). I did not do this series for attention, but there is a certain enjoyment that comes with the knowledge that people are reading what you write, and than some of them are even enjoying it.

This is an end of a sort, and a moment that deserves some reflection. I started this series with the intention of undertaking what for me was a mixture of hobby/stress relief/research, with an internal aim of writing about things that I was interested in in a way that I wanted to, to engage in a a form of history-commentary without getting bogged down in the academic processes of referencing and footnotes: I have never intended for Ireland’s Wars to be taken as an academic-level exercise that should be considered a definitive word on the subjects contained therein. It has evolved out in ways I never expected when I started, evidence of which is surely the back-heavy nature, with hundreds of entries for the 20th century, compared to a handful for earlier times (another reason why I want to go back and do some work on those periods). It’s been at times a very tiring project, but for the most part it’s been immensely enjoyable. History, whether it’s reading or writing, always is, for me. It’s been one of the dearest obsessions for a very long time, and that’s not liable to change anytime soon.

But Ireland’s Wars perhaps deserves a concluding note all the same. We’ve covered an awful lot: myths and ancient invasions, a long and tortured Anglo-Norman takeover, that bloody 17th century, a military diaspora that fought all over the globe, the revolutionary period and the Troubles, to name just some things. Ireland is an island where it is fair to say that a martial history can be found just about everywhere, in every country back road, every hill overlooking an old pass, every urban street. It’s in our fields and our shorelines and in our buildings, in our poems and songs and language, and pretending otherwise is naïve when it isn’t just foolish. It is a legacy not to be overlooked, or underestimated, for fear of misinterpreting what has happened in the past and drawing the wrong kind of lessons. Instead, we should approach such study with diligence, a respectful distance and with understanding: of the blood spilled on this island in the past, the causes that our ancestors fought for and what we have inherited, good or bad, as a result. There is, in my eyes, no better way of honouring that past.

To read the rest of the entries in this series, click here to go to the index.