Lloyd George once remarked that dealing with De Valera was "like picking up mercury with a fork". Bertie Ahern is also a difficult man to fathom and sometimes even more difficult to understand.
Last week at the Institute of Directors annual luncheon the Taoiseach said: "The constitutional question is now closed."
For him, speaking as leader of nationalist Ireland, the leader of Dail Eireann and leader of Fianna Fail – the Republican Party – the issue was over. But what exactly closes it now for Mr Ahern that did not close it before?
If Mr Ahern is referring to the surrender of the Provisionals, is he saying that they are the arbitrators in the closing of the constitutional question? I hope not.
The constitutional issue is not resolved. It is merely the constitutional position of the north that is unchanged. Northern Ireland is and will remain constitutionally part of the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future. Since partition the right to remain in or out of the UK has lain in the hands (or more accurately the votes) of the people of Northern Ireland who may, by a majority, change their constitutional position by electing to leave the UK.
This was recognised by our separated political brethren in the south when they signed the Treaty; when they set up the Free State; when they outlawed the IRA; when they declared a Republic; when Lemass visited O'Neill; when Sunningdale was agreed; when the New Ireland Forum was established; when the Anglo-Irish Agreement was concluded and when the Good Friday Agreement was given birth. The 'settlement' of the constitutional position of the north was never in the gift of the renegade Provisional movement. For years every Irish democrat – nationalist or unionist; capitalist or socialist – has accepted that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland is underpinned by the principle of consent and the only organisation out of step with that viewpoint was the Provisional IRA.
The Taoiseach meant to assure IoD members that the self-styled proponents of physical-force republicanism were no longer a threat to their constitutional position and, of course, he is right.
Messrs Adams, Maskey and Kelly are bound for elected office in a UK regional assembly in which they will administer UK-wide policy initiatives with the limited budget awarded to them by the UK treasury. Their participation in this UK regional administration copper-fastens their acceptance of the constitutional position of Northern Ireland which (sorry Mr Adams) is no less transitional than it was intended to be in 1921. The welfare of all those who live on Ireland combined with practicalities of sharing a small island with limited resources and infrastructure makes cross-border cooperation an economic and social reality, not a political imperative.
It is clear from the shenanigans of members of Dail Eireann that they are in a flap over the electoral threat from the Provisionals. They need to catch themselves on. Are Fine Gael so unsure of their Irishness that they need to dig up Arthur Griffiths and Mick Collins? Or do Mr Ahern and Mr McDowell really think that a military two-step around the GPO by the Irish Army will outflank the legitimacy claimed by the Provisionals?
If they do, they really don't understand the parasitical nature of the modern-day Provisional movement. Giving back the Irish State the legitimacy of the 1916 uprising is commendable but it is years too late. The legitimacy of physical-force republicanism (or indeed loyalism) at the turn of the century in the context of that era is justified but, against the dignified backdrop of eighty years of Irish military neutrality and the barbarity of the 30 year Provisional IRA campaign, the reinstatement of the 1916 commemoration is as welcome in modern Ireland as the spectre of 'comely maidens dancing at the crossroads'.
If the Irish state needs to take ownership of mainstream republicanism then it should take more responsibility for the ownership of the Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown as the aspirations of the United Irishmen remain unfulfilled.
In the absence of the threat from the military wing of the Provisional movement, the real challenge for those who believe in a united Ireland is to persuade non-nationalists on the island that they have nothing to fear from the pluralist, egalitarian and fraternal ideals contained in true republicanism. With the intolerance shown by some to economic migrants and the inherent greed and self-interest that wealth has brought, convincing unionists and others that those ideals exist in modern Ireland could be an uphill struggle!
