FROM THE ARCHIVES/February 8th, 1933:For long the main media voice of unionism in Ireland, The Irish Times struggled to come to terms with independence for a decade or so after its achievement, as is evident from this editorial commenting on Éamon de Valera's grand plans for the country's role in the world after his second election victory in 1933. – Joe Joyce
IN HIS latest utterances – at Ennis and at the opening of the new wireless station – President de Valera has appealed for national unity. His arguments were lofty, and we must respect their temper and their tone. Briefly, Mr de Valera’s claim is that God, by many signs vouchsafed during the past millennium, has destined Ireland to a position of peculiar greatness and influence in the coming centuries.
She has held her faith, has been true to her ideals, and has been moved in all things by an indomitable spirit of patriotism. Hitherto an alien sway has kept her in the background, but now her grand opportunity has come. She has attained a measure of independence – soon, if Mr de Valera’s policy triumphs, to be complete; and the day is almost ready for her glorious mission, which is nothing less than the salvation of the world. Only one thing remains needful – a real unity of all the national forces – and for this Mr de Valera makes his passionate appeal. He is willing to let bygones be bygones. His words are spoken to North and South, and to all parties in the Free State; and he has addressed himself particularly to those who “had formerly been known as old Unionists”. Mr de Valera credits this Southern minority with love of country. He tells them that their policy of union with Britain is now hopeless, and he invites them to “come along and help in our forward march”.
We speak not only for the “old Unionists”, but, as we think, for many thousands of nationalist Irishmen who share their views; and we are very willing to acknowledge Mr de Valera’s temper of conciliation. He admits that Irish Unionists have served their country according to their lights. We assure him that they will continue to serve it, and that, under his own or any other Government, their character, their brains and their resources will be given to the advancement of Ireland’s welfare. Nevertheless, they can accept neither his material programme nor his political outlook. They can perceive the idealism and romance of his efforts to build the Free State into a small, isolated and self-supporting community; but they know that the effort is bound to fail, with lamentable results for all classes of the citizens.
The “old Unionists”, and probably a still greater number of “old Nationalists”, can have no sympathy with an independence which would discard the British Empire.
The best Irish Unionists share Mr de Valera’s hopes for Ireland. They believe, with him, that she has much to give to the world, and that, perhaps, she can “help by truth to save the world”. Their difference with Mr de Valera is the difference between the man who hid his talent in a napkin and the man who put his talent out to interest. Which sort of Ireland can be more helpful to the world – a prisoned Ireland, turned inward upon herself, or an Ireland holding a guiding place in the world’s greatest empire, expatiating on the largest scene that God offers to human genius, leavening the whole of a vast civilisation with the virtues of Irish energy and Irish faith? Mr de Valera is a political and spiritual paradox. The head of a State which has colonised the world, he has yielded to an acute agoraphobia. That is the tragedy of his “forward march”.
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