Crossing the border into Northern Ireland used to be a dangerous affair, with the potential for a terrorist attack at any time during the height of ‘The Troubles’ — as the three decades of political and sectarian violence between the 1970s and 2000s are referred to on the island of Ireland.
Apart from the Berlin Wall and the fortified line that then divided west from the Iron Curtain, the 500-kilometre border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland was as formidable a frontier as it gets. Illegal crossings — and there were hundreds — were blocked off by concrete, steel and razor-wire obstacles, the borderlands were the most dangerous for the 30,000 British troops operating in the province that would be about the same size as the emirate of Abu Dhabi, while the United Kingdom special forces carried out covert missions with shoot-to-kill orders. The hills, winding roads, rural nature and porous patchwork of fields and ditches were almost impossible to seal off from terrorists — and smugglers.
The main roads between north and south were heavily fortified, with watchtowers on the highpoints monitoring every movement on the ground. Those British troops, backed up by the despised part-time Ulster Defence Regiment who were Protestant and took out their many sectarian grievances on the mostly local Catholic and republican population, moved cautiously and mostly by helicopters, fearing both snipers and bombs planted under culverts. It was a time when bombs were simply bombs, not improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The actual main checkpoints were always at least a couple of inside Northern Ireland and away from the actual line of the border — Irish Republican Army snipers could otherwise shoot from the Republic, and if the Brits returned fire, they would be shooting at another nation, causing a diplomatic incident.
As it was, countless British patrols strayed into the Republic, with their Sandhurst-trained officers citing “map-reading errors” as a euphemism for chasing suspected terrorists where they shouldn’t have. At the time, if those poor map-reading skills claimed by the Brits were indeed a true testament to their abilities and were applicable as a standard by British troops positioned along the Iron Curtain, then Soviets and Nato would have likely engaged in a hot, rather than Cold War.
On the southern side, all the customs buildings were temporary portacabin-type structures — to have permanent buildings would be a tacit acceptance that the border, in existence since 1921 between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland was itself permanent, undermining the prospect of eventual Irish unity.
As well as being a historical and geographical boundary, it was also a psychological frontier. Looking across the border at the south, Loyalists — who wanted to maintain the North’s historical, political and cultural ties with the rest of the United Kingdom, looked at the Republic of Ireland as a priest-ridden nation, one where its Roman Catholic values were anathema to the hard-working Presbyterian work-ethic of places like east Belfast. Hardliners would rather put a gun to their head, or to the heads of anyone else, who supported Irish reunification. When they voted, they voted in droves for the Democratic Unionist Party of the late Rev Ian Paisley. His catch phrase was the emphatic “No surrender” that fixed DUP ideology for decades. Yes, that’s the same DUP now keeping British Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservatives in power in Westminster.
From the south looking north, the majority feared that The Troubles might spread, fully engulfing the Republic and the entire island of Ireland into another Civil War. It had already been through one after the British pulled out in 1921. As is so often the case, when a colonial power withdraws, a civil war follows. Ireland had been an English or British colony since 1172, and the Irish Civil War lasted from 1921 until 1923. That too was bloody and bitter, and my grandfather and his brother never spoke again after taking different sides.
Grandad went with the Michael Collins and the overwhelming majority that supported the terms of the treaty offered by London to divide the island between 26 counties in the south into a free state, with the six remaining counties staying within the UK and the hope they would be re-united down the road; his brother went with the Eamonn De Valera and minority faction that rejected the treaty and wanted a three-year war of independence against the British to continue until the entire island was free from crown rule — an all or nothing view.
The border too was economic, and there were all sorts of money-making rackets that made smugglers — and the IRA and other paramilitary groups — small fortunes. By 1974, both the UK and Ireland had joined the European Common Market (EEC), the economic and customs union that pre-dated the full political integration that came in time with the development of the European Union (EU). Despite all the security measures, there were herds of cattle that were moved back and forwards across the border overnight, with farmers claiming EEC ‘headage’ and disadvantaged-area grants on one side for every head of cattle, then doubling up again on the other side. Fuel and alcohol flowed across the border depending on the tax and customs regime and the currency difference between the British pound and the Irish punt at any given time.
Farmers were cowboys and smugglers became rich in the southern counties of Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth, and there’s a many a modern homestead now, particularly in Donegal, built on the proceeds of illegal border economics. Many an Irish customs’ officer too — who were disparagingly referred to as “rummagers” for the manner they turned over and rummaged through car boots — could retire early on the proceeds of payments for their timely and sudden loss of sight or the turning of a blind eye. There was a popular song at the time that paid homage to the smugglers and their gambling enterprises, with a chorus that went: “We’d have our own Las Vegas, in the hills of Donegal.”
All the above was in the good old, bad old days.
Now peace has taken hold, the watchtowers are dismantled, the Brits are back in their barracks in the mainland, and every crossing is an open road where the only difference is a slight change in the asphalt surface, and the road signs in the south are bilingual and switch from miles per hour to kilometres per hour.
No one on the island — not even those who vote for the DUP to keep May in power — wants a return to a hard border. It’s seamless, fully integrated, and is as close to economic unity as you’ll find anywhere else in the EU where there’s free movement of goods, services and people.
This whole Brexit shenanigans is a mess. And, as the deadline for the UK’s divorce from the rest of the EU edges closer by the day, it’s becoming patently obvious that no one in May’s Cabinet, in the Palace of Westminster, nor indeed in the corridors of power in Whitehall, has the faintest iota of how Brexit will work.
Over the past two weeks, the May government has issued a series of briefing papers that are supposed to outline London’s negotiating position with the EU27. Before any talks on trade or a myriad of other positions can begin between London and Brussels, three core issues must be largely agreed; the amount of money the UK must pay to settle its EU affairs, the rights of UK citizens living in the EU and those of the EU living in the UK; and the Irish border.
The British paper on the future of the Irish border reads like Alice in Wonderland. It envisages maintaining the open border with small companies moving their goods across the border without any excise duties, while large companies would voluntarily pay their duties retrospectively and on an honour system. (Yeah, like that’s going to happen!)
The paper implies that both the UK and Ireland would remain outside the Schengen visa zone, as they are now. That’s fine. But what’s not acceptable is passport officials in Dublin, Cork, Shannon or Knock — or any other point of entry — doing the Brits’ dirty work for them. If a Polish plumber or a Lithuanian waitress wants to enter Ireland they are free to do unimpeded and without visas as is the right of any EU citizen. Then it’s just a matter of them getting on a bus and heading across that open border, to work in the UK as they do now. And don’t think for one instance that the DUP or anyone who votes for the party to keep May in power, would allow for a moment internal passport checks to come into effect while travelling between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
All those hardline Brexiteers who wanted Britain to “take back control” and stop the flow of migrants from eastern Europe won’t be satisfied either.
Don’t think for a moment either that the EU will accept such an arrangement. There’s probably folks right now figuring out to get a container of Vietnamese shoes, Chinese-made replica tools, or Malaysian-made car parts into a port in Northern Ireland now, with a truck to ship it into Ireland unimpeded, and then into the rest of the EU proper.
The British position paper on the border is being openly scoffed at by some in the EU27, and has little chance of becoming a reality. May, like Alice, will be left down the Rabbit Hole as the Boris Johnson, David Davis and all of the other Mad Hatters of Brexit shout “I’m late! I’m late!”
As one senior EU official engaged in the Brexit negotiations has already noted with a frankness that’s becoming increasingly used over the talks: “What we see in the UK paper is a lot of magical thinking about how an invisible border would work in the future ... It is very good on aspirations, but it is short on workable solutions.”
All of those who made a fortune smuggling cattle, fuel and alcohol too will be rubbing their hands, waiting for the Brits to crash out of the EU without any deal.
I can almost see one dear friend of mine from Donegal, Eugene, fuelling up his truck now — with diesel from either north or south, depending on the price, the pound or the euro — and just waiting for the good old, bad old times to roll around again.
Yep, come the hard Brexit in 20 months’ time, he’ll be one of the many building a new Las Vegas, in the hills of Donegal.
