All nationalists perpetrate a myth of "Nationhood" implying their is one "pre-existant" people or natural agglomeration of communities united with one purpose. In reality virtually all national entities have been born of blood, often a great deal, and of an enforced unity between disparate groups. Ireland is no different in this regard, although the Clontarf era disunity was little more than rival clans and chieftains launching raiding parties against each others cattle and women and making alliances to suit their purpose at a particular point in time...

Paisley and his ilk have always claimed that "Home rule is Rome rule" even though their was a genuinely republican ethos to much of the independence movement and the state established thereby.  However a creeping Catholicism meant that there was a great deal of truth to the charge even though many could not see it - seeing only a natural affinity between Catholicism and Nationalism with no ant-Protestant intent. Even today there are very few protestants in the Irish Civil service with the requirement to be able to speak Irish being a natural barrier to entry for most.

One of the few benefits of the child abuse imbroglio has been to expose an unhealthily close relationship between the Catholic Church and state to the benefit of neither. Those few Catholic elements in the Iona institute and elsewhere who feel offended by the closure of the embassy feel it as almost a disestablishment of their Church in Ireland, and are blissfully aware of how offensive their presumption of a close relationship between Church and state is to non-Catholics and all who still abhor how the Catholic Church handled the child abuse scandals - right up to a couple of years ago.

Diamuid Martin is one of the few leaders to realise that things can never be the same again, and that if the Pope does visit in June (unlikely in my view) it will be on different terms to the last visit by John Paul II.

Index of Frank's Diaries