c. 1998 Religion News Service
(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)
DUBLIN _ Does anyone know where Pfizer makes the key ingredient for its impotence drug Viagra?
It is made in a place with the improbable name of Ringsakiddy. I mean, really! And where is that? Well, would you be terribly surprised to learn it is in County Cork?
This fact, however, provides interesting background _ and an economic irony _ to the fighting in Northern Ireland as the Orange Order and its thugish allies try to win in the streets the battle they lost in the referendum on the Good Friday peace agreement.
The astonishing economic success of Ireland _ the Celtic Tiger _ could be replicated in Northern Ireland. But not without peace.
Secretary of Commerce William Daley, visiting Belfast last month, noted that American business knows Northern Ireland is a potentially profitable site for investment. But only after the violence ends.
The riots this week have shot down any possibility of such help this year. For the Protestant Orangemen, religious hatred is more important than economic prosperity.
Estimates of the economic growth rate in Ireland indicate it will be _ for the second year in a row _ around 12 percent. In the United States we’re happy _ very happy, indeed _ with somewhere between 4 and 5 percent. Ireland’s exports went up by 29 percent and its imports by 30 percent. The export of organic chemicals _ which includes the Viagra ingredient _ increased by 61 percent.
Ireland now has a higher standard of living than Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and a significant tax surplus is expected this year.
Why do foreign companies invest in Ireland? The principal reason is what economists call”human capital”_ well-educated, intelligent and industrious workers.
An even more important dimension of Irish prosperity, however, is the emergence of small- and medium-size companies formed by Irish entrepreneurs who are also well-educated, intelligent and industrious. It used to be that you would have to fight your way through swarms of poets in Dublin. Now you encounter throngs of entrepreneurs.
Northern Ireland has the same potential in human capital.
But, alas, many of the young men who would benefit from a rapid expansion of the Northern Irish economy are the unemployed louts who celebrate the anniversary of the final conquest of Ireland by William of Orange by throwing gasoline bombs at police, burning cars, and torching Catholic churches and schools.
In a sense, one can sympathize with the Orangemen. For three centuries Protestants have been oppressing Catholics in the six counties. They have trumpeted their domination over a people they believe are inherently inferior by these”marching season”parades for almost two centuries. At the end of the 20th century, they are still celebrating a”no popery”crusade. Their marches through Catholic neighborhoods are not unlike a Ku Klux Klan parade through Harlem.
This year, with the Good Friday agreement suggesting the years of domination are over, it appears especially important to the hardline Orangemen that they insist nothing has changed and nothing will ever change in Northern Ireland. They wrecked previous settlements and seem to think they’ll wreck this one, too.
Yet, whatever the final outcome this weekend _ Sunday (July 12) is Orangemen’s Day, the key day in marching season _ the fundamental nature of the change is patent. Their old allies _ the British _ are now blocking the parades. The British government, the British legal system, the British Army, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, many of whose members belong to the Orange Lodges, are all involved in trying to stop the marches.
Indeed, the ultimate explanation for the change is that the British government is now determined to end the Northern Ireland nuisance.
Tony Blair is the first British prime minister who intends to see justice done in Ireland. His huge parliamentary majority is why the old allies of the Orangemen are the targets of their gasoline bombs.
Orangemen’s Day may well be a bloody battle, not only between Catholics and Protestants, but between those Protestants who voted for the Good Friday Agreement and those who did not. It will also destroy any hope of economic progress in Northern Ireland for another year.
Will the Orangemen win?
They’re tough, but Blair is equally tough _ and he has the votes.
DEA END GREELEY
