On the Right

Belfast, July 10—The Reverend Ian Paisley is the symbol in Northern Ireland of Protestant intransigence. The symbol on the other side is Bernadette Devlin. In fact they are not really complementary. Paisley comes through as the bitter-ender, who desires a tightly controlled, London-oriented, Catholic-hating Northern Ireland; Bernadette Devlin as the Joan of Arc of Catholic emancipation. In fact Paisley would dissolve his allegiance to the Queen (he is a member of Parliament) in a minute, if by doing so he could fashion a viable, independent Northern Ireland. And Bernadette Devlin cares nothing for Catholicism—or Protestantism, or the Queen, or Parliament (she too is a member): She cares for “socialism.” Because it is socialism—she profoundly believes— that will rescue Northern Ireland from its quandaries. I say profoundly believes with caution. She is only 23, and every year or so since attaining political consciousness, she has come to believe profoundly in slightly different goals, although she appears recently to have become semi-permanently arrested by “socialism,” nestling down comfortably in left radicalism.

Miss Devlin does not, however, preside over the organized opposition. There are others. Mr. John Hume is the Catholic reformer who beat Mr. Eddie McAteer, the longtime leader of the opposition in Northern Ireland, in the last election. McAteer, surely the most quietly charming and eloquent man in the English-speaking world, wants, simply, union—with the Irish Free State. John Hume believes that union is a) unachievable at the moment, and b) wouldn’t, in and of itself, accomplish anything very much. Here he agrees with Bernadette, the residual difference being this, that Hume believes that no progress of any sort makes sense which is not evolutionary; which is to say, nonviolent. Whereas Bernadette, although she sometimes exhibits a little caution in speaking about it, more or less gives you to understand that the Northern Ireland situation is so impossibly ossified that only a good bloody revolution will shake it loose.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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Belfast, July 10—The Reverend Ian Paisley is the symbol in Northern Ireland of Protestant intransigence. The symbol on the other side is Bernadette Devlin. In fact they are not really complementary. Paisley comes through as the bitter-ender, who desires a tightly controlled, London-oriented, Catholic-hating Northern Ireland; Bernadette Devlin as the Joan of Arc of Catholic emancipation. In fact Paisley would dissolve his allegiance to the Queen (he is a member of Parliament) in a minute, if by doing so he could fashion a viable, independent Northern Ireland. And Bernadette Devlin cares nothing for Catholicism—or Protestantism, or the Queen, or Parliament (she too is a member): She cares for “socialism.” Because it is socialism—she profoundly believes— that will rescue Northern Ireland from its quandaries. I say profoundly believes with caution. She is only 23, and every year or so since attaining political consciousness, she has come to believe profoundly in slightly different goals, although she appears recently to have become semi-permanently arrested by “socialism,” nestling down comfortably in left radicalism.

Miss Devlin does not, however, preside over the organized opposition. There are others. Mr. John Hume is the Catholic reformer who beat Mr. Eddie McAteer, the longtime leader of the opposition in Northern Ireland, in the last election. McAteer, surely the most quietly charming and eloquent man in the English-speaking world, wants, simply, union—with the Irish Free State. John Hume believes that union is a) unachievable at the moment, and b) wouldn’t, in and of itself, accomplish anything very much. Here he agrees with Bernadette, the residual difference being this, that Hume believes that no progress of any sort makes sense which is not evolutionary; which is to say, nonviolent. Whereas Bernadette, although she sometimes exhibits a little caution in speaking about it, more or less gives you to understand that the Northern Ireland situation is so impossibly ossified that only a good bloody revolution will shake it loose.