I was recently talking to someone that I know and respect very much, when he recalled the famous Terence O’Neill speech. In a television broadcast in the 1960s, the then Stormont Prime Minister O’Neill posed the question, “What kind of Ulster do you want?”
Aside from the fact that he was talking about Northern Ireland, and not the province of Ulster, he was addressing people as community strife was just beginning.
O’Neill, of course, was under fire from hardline Unionists for embarking on reforms to take the half-century-old state into a new era, away from “the Protestant parliament for a Protestant people.”
He was an unlikely liberal.
With his plummy accent, from well-to-do “big house” Unionism, and an Orangeman to boot, his so-called reforms seem tame by today’s standards. Still, visiting Catholic schools, expressing sympathy on the death of the Pope and daring to foster good relationships with the southern government were enough to draw the ire of many Unionists and loyalists.
They wanted to keep a grip of housing allocations, jobs and just about everything of privilege.
My friend who recalled the speech said that he was inspired by it, and remembers it brought a tear to his eye because O’Neill struck a chord with him and he wanted a bright future to share with his Catholic neighbours.

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Sadly, by the end of the 1960s, we had slipped further and further into conflict, and how many more tears have been shed over the decades?
It’s not the first time that someone has wondered how different life could be, and as we enter an election in 2017, we reflect again on O’Neill’s famous line about “Ulster at the crossroads.”
You may well think that we’ve never moved away from it.
In the intervening years, the world is a changed place, and while politics here stagnates, the political landscape across the globe has faced upheaval all the time.
Take the British Labour party; many people who want equality and better treatment for the most vulnerable may think that Jeremy Corbyn’s heart is in the right place. But the rest of him is all over the place.
This is the party of Keir Hardie, their first MP at Westminster in the early 1900s. Hardie’s stepfather lost his job in the shipyards and the young Keir started work at the age of seven. At one stage, his meagre four shillings and six pence a week (about 22 pence) for child labour was the family’s only income. He entered politics to improve the lot of the working class, and by the time the 1940s came, Labour introduced the National Health Service to help ordinary families.
What a contrast, then, to see the discredited Tony Blair try to edge his way back on to the political stage, 10 years after he left Westminster. Blair is estimated to be worth £60million and he gets £200,000 on occasions for making a speech.
I guess if power corrupts, the introduction of wealth adds a whole new level of corruption.
He’s from the same party, but Blair’s no Keir Hardie.
Mind you, Blair is a pauper compared to Russian president, Putin who is estimated to be worth £160million. Not bad for the leader of a former Communist state.
In America, politics ebbs and flows.
Today’s president, Donald Trump calls the press the “enemies of the people”, while back in 1960 John F Kennedy told newspaper owners “I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers, I welcome it.”
JFK made a famous speech about secrecy, in which he said “The word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society.” If you check out Youtube for some of his famous speeches, you’ll see why JFK was so charismatic; he was articulate, clever, visionary and very witty. None of which the sinister and incoherent Trump could claim to be.
Things change, people vote for change. Some change is good, some not.
In my lifetime, we’ve also seen the fall of the Berlin wall, the break-up of the Soviet Union, the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa.
And here in Northern Ireland?
Well, actually, things have changed considerably.

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A video was posted recently on social media of a BBC Spotlight programme in 1988 about allegations of an IRA campaign of genocide along the Border in Fermanagh; that is, that Republicans deliberately targeted young Protestant farmers and business people who would have inherited land or property from an ageing generation.
Even as someone who lived through the time, and indeed reported on it, it was a shocking reminder of how bad things were. The video has been posted before, and I assume the purpose is to remind people of the brutality inflicted by the IRA. It certainly achieves that.
It shows now clearly the need for a proper addressing of legacy issues, in which all voices are heard.
But for me, it also speaks loudly of a time that I do not want to go back to, and I am genuinely concerned that the politics of fear puts us in real danger of going into reverse.
Northern Ireland has changed in that we have moved, mostly, away from bloody violence. But that is not enough. Where is the vision for moving us forward into a better society?
So, the current election campaign is rather depressing in that respect, as we see all sides move into negatively scrambling for votes.
The DUP, from its high of last May, has perhaps the most to lose and is under pressure. As if the RHI scandal, on top of others, was not enough, the controversial donation by someone anonymously to the DUP which was used in mainland Britain for the Brexit campaign is adding further to the cloud of financial suspicion.
Rather than answer questions, the DUP strategy is clearly to put Gerry Adams centre stage, and warn that if you don’t vote DUP, an Adams future doesn’t bear thinking about.
For their part, Sinn Fein are pointing all the fingers at the DUP incompetence and alleged corruption, almost as if they’re relying on the negative image of the Foster-led party to do their work in getting their voters out.
The SDLP want change, but hasn’t, to my mind anyway, had a clear message.
The Ulster Unionists are also offering change; but the message was blurred when leader Mike Nesbitt suggested he’d transfer to the SDLP. He was rebuffed in this area; rather ironic when last May Rosemary Barton’s transfers got Richie McPhillips in.
What, one wonders, would Mrs. Barton advise her voters to do in the same scenario? Transfer to McPhillips again, or allow Sinn Fein to get the last seat?
It may not arise; the shakedown of votes in Fermanagh-south Tyrone will be interesting, given that there is one seat less this time. It would be a major surprise of epic proportions if Arlene Foster does not get re-elected here; but other questions remain. How much damage will the controversy do to Lord Morrow’s vote? Will Sinn Fein recapture an extra seat? Will people vote for real change and go for one of the smaller parties?
Unlikely, it would seem. And we will return a Stormont fairly close to the same party strengths. So, considering no one has given us a clear vision for the future, the main question is what happens next?
Here’s another quote for you: “A Northern Ireland based upon the interests of any one section rather than upon the interests of all could have no long-term future.”
Who said that? Terence O’Neill 50 years ago. If we haven’t grasped that by now, no wonder we’re stalled at the crossroads.