The A27 is one of the – if not the – worst trunk roads in NI. Whereas most trunk roads are generally of good quality with occasional lapses, this one is little better than B-class for most of its length, with only short stretches of quality (ironically, the best section of the whole A27 is the non-trunk section between Portadown and Lurgan). This is the official route between the third-largest urban area in NI and Dublin?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. In the 1960s, the proposal was that a motorway – the M11 – would run from Lisburn to Newry, and the Craigavon Development Plan had provision for road links from this motorway to the New City. But the motorway plans were shelved and Craigavon itself was abandoned half-built, with several roads that it didn’t need and without several roads that it did.

I have a personal hatred for the A27, having lived south of the border for the last few years. Driving north to visit family I face the unappealing prospect of twenty miles of substandard road, and on most occasions I avoid it altogether. I prefer to take the 5-mile C-class road from the A1 at Loughbrickland to Gilford instead – although it is of much lower quality, it is relatively short and almost always deserted. This is of course far from ideal.

The ideal solution would be a new trunk road that takes the most efficient route across country between the A1 and Craigavon, and would replace not only the substandard A27 but also the substandard A50 between Portadown and Banbridge. If the B3 from Lurgan to Gilford was also upgraded, it could take further traffic out of Waringstown and Banbridge. The economic benefits of improved connectivity to the A1 Belfast-Dublin strategic route would be substantial, and lives would be saved. 10 miles of safe new road to replace 20 miles of deadly old road sounds like a bargain to me.

Unfortunately, there is a strain of public discourse that fails to distinguish between the two. Ronald Reagan once famously said:

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

While on the other side, the environmentalist movement points to dwindling resources and the limited capacity of the ecosystem to absorb pollution and other forms of biological disruption. Who is right?

As in most such cases, there is truth in both arguments – and to reconcile them we need to distinguish between the two avenues to growth identified above. Reagan was talking about the second, “green” growth process, the one in which human ingenuity dreams up more efficient processes and new business models, opening the door to improved technologies and ever-decreasing waste, an exponential curve that continues indefinitely without ever touching a hard limit. The environmentalists meanwhile are warning that there are limits to the complementary “red” economy, the one which relies on ever-increasing rates of exploitation, a ballistic curve that must hit zero at some finite (if yet unpredictable) future date.

The wrinkle comes when we remember that the two processes have always gone hand in hand – new technology requires new resources, and vice versa. But governments can rebalance the economy to place more weight on “green” efficiency than “red” extraction, by changing the burden of taxation. We have already made a start through carbon taxes, but pollution is not the only limit we face.

Land is the most visible finite resource we have. The exploitation of land for economic activity was mankind’s first foray into resource extraction, and it continues apace. Northern Ireland in particular has almost no unspoiled land left, a testimony to its long history. But not all land is equally exploited – a farm is not in the same class as a factory, or a suburban estate. Site value taxes recognise this by indirectly using the planning system as a measure of resource extraction. Land zoned as commercial is more valuable than that zoned as farmland, as it can be exploited more heavily – and therefore it is taxed more highly. Land zoned as forest or wilderness would be essentially tax-free. By doing so, the incentive for land owners to have their land rezoned for further urban sprawl (or in the case of the Amazon, farmland sprawl) can be reduced or removed entirely.

One might think that human resources are another scarce commodity, but from an economic point of view they are quite the opposite. Every person unemployed – or employed in a McJob – is a potential efficiency squandered. Man-hours cannot be saved in land banks or left untapped in the ground for later generations – they get spent at a rate of one hour per hour no matter what, so letting them trickle away makes no sense from either an economic or a compassionate viewpoint. Unlike oil drilling or greenfield construction, pillars of the red economy, employment is inherently green. And yet we tax it, even knowing that taxes inhibit economic activity.

If we want to increase employment and rebalance the economy from red to green, revenue-neutral taxation incentives are therefore available: reduce corporate and base payroll taxes, while increasing pollution, extraction and site value taxes to compensate (the upper income tax band can stay, for the purposes of redistribution). The major benefits would be increased employment and investment, with reduced urban sprawl and fewer emissions.

Win-win-win-win.

… some of the church’s greatest teachers and saints believed no homicide was involved if abortion took place before the foetus was infused with a soul, known as “ensoulment”. This was believed to occur at “quickening”, when the mother detected the child move for the first time in her womb. In 1591, Pope Gregory XIV determined it at 166 days of pregnancy, almost 24 weeks.
…
St Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) held “the vegetative soul, which comes first, when the embryo lives the life of a plant, is corrupted, and is succeeded by a more perfect soul, which is both nutritive and sensitive, and then the embryo lives an animal life; and when this is corrupted, it is succeeded by the rational soul introduced from without (ie by God)”.

Centuries of enlightened thinking (yes, even in the Catholic Church) understood that there were nuances of life, that human development was a process of many stages rather than an instantaneous event. He did not have access to our scientific knowledge, but nothing we have learned since has refuted Aquinas’s basic hypothesis. We now know the exact stage of embryonic development when the central nervous system forms, and have a fair idea when awareness of stimuli such as pain develops. It is no accident that Pope Gregory’s moment of quickening is similar to commonly defined abortion limits, because they both derive from the same logical considerations. The transition from “vegetative” to “animal” states of being is grounded in hard evidence, even if the line between “animal” and human consciousness continues to evade us.

It does seem strange then, that some time in the 19th century – just as scientific advances were shedding light on the moment of conception – the irrational notion of an instantaneous beginning to human existence began to take hold. One moment, there are apparently just a few cells swimming around and in the next a perfectly formed human soul appears, even though nothing much physically has changed. Perhaps it is just our instinctive aversion to ambiguity – we humans do like our tidy mental pigeonholes. Whatever the source of this gut feeling, it is difficult to muster a logical argument to back it up. If mere clusters of human cells were a human person, then HeLa would be a person, or the precipitate from your last blood test. If personhood were defined by a unique combination of DNA, then my twin nieces would not be two separate people. If it were the particular expression of that DNA, then how can you say that different organs constitute a single person? The only consistent way to define a “person” is through the presence of a mind. I think, therefore I am.

Without a mind, and by extension a brain to contain it, a person cannot exist. We already accept that braindead adults are no longer people and so can be unplugged and grieved for in peace without the law getting involved. If a living thing that no longer has a working brain is not a person, then surely a living thing that never had a working brain is not a person either?

(This post originally appeared on Slugger O’Toole)

Huns opposed the Irish-nationalist thesis, but at the same time they also rejected wholesale the idea of separate identities. Not only did they stand apart from the “Irish” (Taig) ethnic identity, but they did not expend much energy developing one of their own, instead falling back on religious (Protestant) or political (Unionist) identities; or the vague concept of “Britishness”. But to most, the shared “British” identity is one that is (to varying degrees) held in addition to their ethnic ones – there are many black and Asian minorities in England who would never consider themselves English but are quite happy to be British, as to them it is bereft of ethnic overtones.

To Huns however, Britishness became by default their ethnic identity. The English share this confusion, but they have the excuse of being numerous. When the English decide to define Britishness, the others have the option of either going along or (increasingly these days) opting out. When Huns attempt to define Britishness, the others look at them funny and wonder if they fell on their heads trying to kiss the Blarney stone. By failing to define their own ethnic identity, they have ended up in the uncomfortable place where outside forces define their identity for them.

That’s why we Huns need a name, so we can start defining ourselves for a change.

(This post is based on a comment I made on IJP’s blog)

The Sporting Banner of the Emerald Isle

Ireland (the island) presents an inconsistent face to the world. At all-Ireland sporting events a variety of symbolism is in use, while most countries make do with only one or (sometimes) two distinct flags. Confusion between Ireland the island and Ireland the sovereign state results in the alienation of many Unionists from all-island sporting organizations. This has led to many sports adopting more inclusive symbolisms, however these have been done on an ad-hoc basis and suffer from a lack of consistency and design impact. The result is a confusing assortment of State, organizational and unofficial flags being flown, producing a fragmented brand and a divided community of supporters.

A similar problem with anthems led to the commissioning of the song “Ireland’s Call” by the IRFU, which has since been adopted by other sporting organizations, thus becoming a de-facto “sporting anthem”. We are therefore motivated to design an analogous “sporting banner”, with a view to unifying the disparate symbolisms currently in use and presenting a distinctive, common brand.

Design brief

1. Must represent the island of Ireland across multiple sporting disciplines
2. Should avoid divisive or controversial design elements
3. Should be distinct from existing flags, Irish or otherwise
4. Must be bold and readily identifiable from a distance
5. Must be able to command broad allegiance
6. Should be based on existing symbology

Prior art

Most of these can be found on Wikipedia.

1. IRFU flag
   Pro: already in use, uncontroversial (2,5)
   Con: poor design quality (4), non-universal (1)
2. Irish Hockey flag
   As IRFU, marginally cleaner design
3. Irish Cricket flag
   As IRFU, but even worse design
4. The four-provinces flag
   Pro: widely recognizable, already in use (1,2,5), explicitly represents island of Ireland
   Con: confused design, lack of Unionist engagement
5. Tricolour
   Pro: in use, recognisable
   Con: politically divisive
6. Geraldine (“St. Patrick’s”) cross
   Pro: simple, bold design
   Con: obscure, lack of Republican engagement
7. Harp on green field
   Pro: simple, bold design
   Con: already in use as flag of Leinster
8. Harp on blue field
   Pro: simple, bold design
   Con: already in use as RoI presidential standard

The above can be broken down into the following pool of design elements:

1. Green field
   Most commonly used element – uncontroversial and universally recognizable.
2. Blue field (“St. Patrick’s Blue”)
   Less common, somewhat archaic alternative to the above
3. Flags of the Four Provinces, in combination
   Explicitly all-Ireland (possible negative connotations for some Unionists)
4. Orange
   Ironically, the presence of (supposedly Protestant) orange on much Irish symbolism serves to alienate Protestants, whereas green is broadly acceptable.
5. White
   Commonly found as secondary element
6. Harp
   Uncontroversial, easily recognizable
7. Shamrock
   Ditto
8. Red saltire
   Originally arms of FitzGerald, repurposed as ersatz “St. Patrick’s cross” in 19th C. Slight bias towards unionists (and Blueshirts) but also found in establishment contexts across Ireland

Solution

The starting point of our preferred solution is to explicitly draw parallels with “Ireland’s Call”, as the banner and the song are intended to solve similar problems and be used on the same occasions. Linking the banner with the song also helps to underline its design brief as sporting rather than political symbolism.

The lyrical theme of “Ireland’s Call” is one of teammates from the four provinces standing together to face their opponents with pride – the second verse is devoted entirely to poetic descriptions of those four provinces. It would seem natural then to start with the Four Provinces flag (pool element 3), however it suffers from serious design flaws – by combining four complex, disparate designs, one ends up with a whole that is graphically much less than the sum of its parts.

This is not an insurmountable problem – many flags balance the competing requirements of symbolic inclusivity and graphic simplicity by defacing a bold primary design with a complex coat of arms – the flag of Croatia is particularly apposite. We have therefore chosen to include the Four Provinces symbolism in the form of a shield defacing the main flag.

The primary element of the main design was chosen to be a green field (pool element 1) – although St Patrick’s blue (element 2) has an older pedigree, green is more readily associated with Ireland, particularly in sporting contexts where Ireland competes in a green strip. At this stage, we could construct a design similar to the current hockey flag, but such a flag lacks any bold design elements and therefore appears bland and is hard to identify from afar (brief point 4). As brief point 4 is arguably the entire purpose of having a flag, we cannot disregard it.

Orange (element 4) is reminiscent of the republican flag, and therefore too politically charged for our purposes. We have already chosen to deface our flag with a design that includes a harp (element 6). Shamrocks (element 7) would not stand out against the field unless rendered in an unnatural colour. The only element left in our design pool is the Geraldine cross (element 8), but by a stroke of luck it fulfills our requirements perfectly – it is bold and distinctive; the red saltire is nowhere else seen against a green field; and any perceived pro-Unionist bias may be regarded as an appropriate counterweight to any perceived pro-Nationalist bias of the Four Provinces shield.

When the final design is assembled, the Four Provinces stand powerfully at the centre (“shoulder to shoulder”) while the red saltire (with customary white fringing) appears to radiate gloriously outwards. Together these themes draw multiple parallels between song and banner, hence our suggestion that a nickname be lifted directly from the lyrics of Ireland’s Call in order to emphasise a unity of purpose.

To minimize stylistic clashes (and printing costs!) we have reduced the colour palette down to a set of six commonly used bolds. Connacht forgive us.

Although the design is straightforward (green + red saltire + four provinces), bonus symbolism can be milked if one is motivated. The green, white and red colour scheme is partway between the green-white-orange of Nationalists and the red-white-blue of Unionists. The white fringing can be regarded as a white saltire in its own right, a Dissenter counterpart to the red saltire of Anglicans and Gaelic green. The four green triangles visible between the arms of the saltire can be read as a secondary symbol of the four provinces.

By using pre-existing all-Ireland symbols in the design (to wit, various defacements of a green field; red saltire; Four Provinces flag), we also unify those symbols in a coherent brand, so that familiarity with the sporting banner automatically implies familiarity with the components when taken individually. The introduction at an event of even a small number of sporting banners amongst a population of Four Provinces, St Patrick’s crosses and official IRFU flags (say) would likely have a disproportionate effect on brand image, with the other three flags appearing (to the uninitiated) to be special cases of the sporting banner. Thus the combined effect is one of a single brand with complementary strands, rather than an assortment of disconnected brands. This brand is further reinforced by tying it into the lyrics of Ireland’s Call – the aim being that the audio and visual symbols should each invoke a mental image of the other.

Details

vert a saltire gules fimbriated argent, centred an escutcheon quarterly; 1st or a cross gules centred an escutcheon of pretence argent, a dexter hand gules; 2nd azure three crowns or; 3rd per pale first argent a dexter half eagle displayed sable, second azure a sinister arm embowed fessways holding a sword all argent; 4th vert a harp or

Adobe Illustrator source file

16×28 units green field (1:sqrt(3))
red saltire width 2u, white fringing width 1u
shield 6.5x8u, centered, black border 0.2u

shield:
four equal area quadrants
centred on quadripoint
upper quadrants square aspect
clockwise from top left: Ulster,Munster,Leinster,Connacht
U cross width 1/8 shield width
U shield 1/4×3/8 s.w.
U hand height 1/4 s.w.
M crowns 3/16×3/16 s.w.
L harp height 7/16 s.w.
L harp turned so strings vertical (to avoid curve of shield)
C eagle height 7/16 s.w.

Pantone (CMYK) palette:

gold: 116C (0,16,100,0)
red: 186C (0,100,81,4)
blue: 281C (100,72,0,32)
green: 364C (65,0,100,42)

License

The files presented in this post contain some public domain elements from wikimedia commons. All other designs and design elements in this post are hereby released into the public domain.

The old social contract, with a weak, passive middle class enriching itself while staying out of politics, cannot become an indefinite right to rule.

Isn’t this the problem in Northern Ireland too? The middle classes, such as the apocryphal “garden centre Prod”, have withdrawn from politics and left the tribal bases to prop up an ossifying system. Electoral turnout has been on the wane ever since the GFA, and it can be argued that this reflects not consent but apathy.

The peace dividend, consisting mainly of a bloated public sector, has left the middle classes comfortable. But this is the lazy comfort of managed decline – there is precious little fresh thinking in either the business or political establishments. And meanwhile the tribal divide continues to fester, with Girdwood the latest integration plan to have its teeth pulled. Political announcements by the main parties seem designed not to break out of the trenches, but to consolidate their position within them.

In most advanced countries the middle classes hold considerable political power – it is the middle classes in the main that parties from both sides try to woo through tax schemes and public order initiatives. But politics in Northern Ireland is divorced from such concerns. If one has no interest in the tribal balance of power, NI politics holds no appeal. If one’s livelihood is funded (directly or indirectly) from London then there is no incentive to get involved in provincial affairs.

Stormont cannot do anything about the economy, and will not do anything about society. What remains of middle-class politics? The garden centre has never looked more attractive.

I know women who have had miscarriages – members of my own family – and the trauma is indescribable. We all have friends or family members who have gone through the same pain, whether they chose to share it with us or not. But in most such cases the physical trauma is mercifully brief – not so in cases like X.

To deny palliative care to a woman who has been told that a miscarriage is inevitable – but not imminent – is quite simply inhuman. Morality is not a set of unbending, rigid rules – it is about compassion. Moral principles are derived from that compassion, not the other way around. Those in leadership positions who are elevating a set of abstract principles above their own capacity for reason are in danger of losing touch with their basic humanity.

One can quite consistently argue against elective abortions but allow them for medical reasons – the Constitution itself recognises this distinction. But some of our politicians have decided it is better to throw vulnerable women under the bus than have to make that distinction in their own minds.

To continue to deny medical abortions because one is afraid of the “slippery slope” towards elective abortions is cowardice, and those engaging in it should be utterly ashamed.

Performing a napkin calculation based on current council areas, we get:

BELFAST ~ 350k:
Belfast, Castlereagh (minus Carryduff and Dundonald) plus bits of Lisburn

ANTRIM ~320k:
Ballymena, Ballymoney, Moyle, Larne, Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey, Antrim plus Glenavy.

DOWN AND LAGAN VALLEY ~330k:
North Down, Ards, Down, most of Lisburn plus bits of Castlereagh, Banbridge and Newry&Mourne

ARMAGH AND UPPER BANN ~290k:
Craigavon, Armagh, most of Newry&Mourne and Banbridge

TYRONE AND FERMANAGH ~250k:
Cookstown, Dungannon, Omagh, Strabane, Fermanagh

(LONDON)DERRY ~250k:
Coleraine, Magherafelt, Limavady, Derry City

Urban, eastern councils will be slightly higher in population and lower in area compared to rural, western ones. Drumlins Rock suggested that Belfast should be expanded further to take in Dundonald, Holywood and Newtownabbey, however I have not shown that here as I feel it is an argument for another time.

If we believe in limited government, we should also believe in decisions being made as close to the citizen as possible. This does not mean that smaller is always better – sometimes economy of scale is inescapable. It is clear that local councils are at present far too small to play any meaningful role, and so increasing their size would (counterintuitively) support localism by allowing real powers to be devolved to them.

Six counties plus Belfast would be more sensible – with Fermanagh either partially or fully merged with Tyrone due to its small population, and with Armagh taking over bordering population centres in West Down (Banbridge and Newry). This has several advantages, not least the historical and cultural legitimacy of using traditional counties as a basis. The number and location of councils would then also match the proposed five or six acute hospitals, giving a possible role for councils in their oversight. This would seem to indicate that such councils would also be the right size for other public-sector oversight roles. They would be large enough to be able to raise and spend meaningful amounts of money on local issues such as rural roads and town centres.

The only significant argument against such an arrangement (and admittedly it is a good one) is that it would lead to one-community control of most councils. This however is already the case in the majority of existing councils. On the other hand, giving one “side” an overwhelming majority may (again counterintuitively) loosen up the political balance within the designations, as it would remove the motivation for block voting to keep themmuns out. With luck, we could eventually see the big parties within one community actively trying to woo voters from the other community to make up the numbers, rather than appealing to the core communal vote.

In order for goodwill to flourish though, local councils should be stripped of all powers in contentious policy areas. For example, currently we have very visible local community fiefdoms where the Irish language (and occasionally Ulster-Scots) is either prominent or completely absent, according to local council makeup. This reinforces segregation into Unionist and Nationalist areas of control. Instead, there should be an overall language and signage policy for all of NI. That does not mean that regional variations cannot be accommodated within such a policy, but it does mean that contentious matters are kept firmly within Stormont’s mutual veto system.

Of course, the danger of this is that nothing contentious ever gets decided, but that’s a problem in any case.

(This post is based on a comment I made a while ago on policyni.com. Normal service will be resumed shortly)

20th century political philosophy accepts the idea that nations have the right to self-determination, that ethnic geography should therefore define political geography. This has led to the current ideal, best exemplified in Europe, of state borders being drawn along ethnic dividing lines. The ethnic patchwork that has taken shape organically over thousands of years is therefore taken as the starting point, and (in theory at least) political geography derives its legitimacy from it. The Danes are defined by their cultural identity, and Denmark is defined as the homeland of the Danish people. When the people did not match the territory (in Schleswig-Holstein) the eventual solution was to redefine Denmark.

But Ireland works the other way around. As an island, its borders are fixed. The Irish people are themselves fixed by the territory, i.e. those people who live (or were born in) Ireland. If you try to define “Irishness” on the usual cultural basis you create a second kind of “Irishness” in conflict with the first. The only way to resolve this ambiguity is to let go of one of these definitions. If one prefers the cultural version, then one defines an “Irishness” that does not cover all natives of the island, so what then does one call the other natives? If we do not call them “Irish” then we implicitly question the legitimacy of their presence. But if we do call them “Irish” then we are guilty of forcing a cultural identity onto those who do not want it.

Alternatively we can choose the geographical definition of “Irish”, but then there must be several native Irish ethnic groups, of which the majority group is just one. We are not short of names for these groups, so long as we are not easily offended: Taig, Hun and Pavee. We thereby place the island’s majority ethnic community on an equal footing with the native minorities (and implicitly also with immigrant minorities), and reserve “Irish” to describe the whole.

Some things which are conventionally identified with Irishness may then be found to be relevant just to the majority Taig ethnic group. In particular, the novel symbols of nationhood deriving from the Home Rule and independence period have no meaning for Huns while older symbols, such as those deriving from the legend of St. Patrick, continue to have broad relevance to all Irish people. The Irish language also has a personal relevance to many Taigs that most Huns do not share.

We see therefore, that neither standard interpretation of modern Irish symbolism is entirely correct. The standard Taig view of independence-era symbols such as the tricolour and anthem is that they are the national symbols of Ireland (the island), even though this was an ideal that was never realised. The standard Hun opinion is that they are the symbols of the Republic of Ireland, despite the strong allegiance they continue to attract from inside the North. It would be more accurate to say that they are the national symbols of Taigs, for if we recognise the right of people to self-identify then we must also recognise their right to show allegiance (or not) to symbols of that identity. By a similar argument, most supposed Northern Ireland symbolism is effectively Hun symbolism in disguise.

It should not come as any surprise that political symbols now have de facto ethnic meanings not intended by their creators, nor should it be any cause for concern. Separating symbolism from politics is one way of defusing tensions – while even politically moderate Huns will balk at any symbolic suggestion that NI “belongs” to the Republic (as flying the tricolour is often viewed), acceptance of the distinct identity of Taigs is mainstream. If existing flags and symbols could come to be accepted as markers of ethnicity rather than political ideology, much of the heat could be taken out of the symbolism debate. This would also then leave the way open for new NI and all-Ireland symbolism to be developed that is free from ethno-political baggage.