Something is in the air. First Brexit, then the Irish Sea border, then a Nationalist First Minister in Northern Ireland for the first time. Now a LucidTalk survey for the Belfast Telegraph has shown that a majority of people in Northern Ireland (52%) say they aspire to Irish unity at some point in the future and an Alliance party survey has confirmed that more of its members would vote for Irish unity (37.5%) than would support Northern Ireland remaining in the UK (27.2%) if a border poll was held in the next decade. The Alliance party are officially neutral on the constitutional question but are generally regarded as being slightly more pro-union than pro-united Ireland, making these latest findings all the more significant. In fact, almost 75% of Alliance party members believe Irish unity is likely with just 8% saying it isn’t.
But what would a vote in favour of a united Ireland entail? Would Northern Ireland simply be subsumed into the Republic, would Ireland become a federal state, or would an entirely new nation be formed? Could people in the south expect a free at the point of need type health system like the NHS? How much would reunification cost? And how would we address things like flags and national anthems?
It’s easy to say the national anthem would be Amhrán na bhFiann. After all, the argument for some would go, the country has been reunited, Amhrán na bhFiann is “our” national anthem, and those in the north identifying as ‘British only’ would amount to less than 8.6% of an all-island nation state. But is this really what we want a new Ireland to be? One in which between 600,000 and 1,000,000 people are forced to stand under a flag and anthem which, rightly or wrongly, they don’t feel represented by, or in some cases threatened by? Many will argue that the Unionist community are already represented in the Irish tricolour, but that’s like the Unionist community arguing that Nationalists are represented by St. Patrick’s saltire in the Union Flag. Former Irish rugby player Andrew Trimble, in his documentary For Ulster and Ireland, asked fellow former Irish international Barry Murphy if he would have been willing to earn two of his four Irish caps in Belfast and to sing God Save The Queen before them (until the 1950s Irish rugby matches alternated between Dublin and Belfast with God Save the Queen being played in Belfast). Unsurprisingly it was a hard no, and most Irish people would probably feel the same. But that should be cause for reflection. How do people like Andrew Trimble or Rory Best feel when they stand for Amhrán na bhFiann in Dublin underneath the tricolour? Now multiply that by up to a million people.
An Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI opinion poll in December 2021 found that 72% of people in the Republic of Ireland were not in favour of changing the national anthem in order to achieve a United Ireland. For some, sacrificing a national anthem would seem a small price to pay when compared to the sacrifices made by the thousands of men and women who gave their lives fighting for Irish independence, but national anthems are emotive, and perhaps even more so in Ireland. While an overwhelming majority might not be in favour of changing the anthem to achieve unification, the reality is that if the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are ever to be united it’s hard to see how that could be done without some accommodation being made around national anthems, either by having more than one anthem or an entirely new anthem.
What are the options?
The obvious one is to have two national anthems. Amhrán na bhFiann and either God Save the Queen or another song selected by the Unionist community in the North. However, this is unlikely to garner support from anyone.
A solution could be an entirely new song, but as we know from “Ireland’s Call” (commissioned by the IRFU in 1995 as an alternative to Amhrán na bhFiann to accommodate players and supporters from a Unionist background), purpose-built songs lack familiarity and often struggle to evoke the emotional engagement typified with a national anthem. A middle ground might be to keep the tune of Amhrán na bhFiann but to change the lyrics, or to use different anthems for different occasions, or perhaps the public in Northern Ireland could vote on an anthem that could then be sang alongside Amhrán na bhFiann.
Another option is to follow the example of South Africa where, following the end of apartheid, they adopted two national anthems, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and The Call of South Africa (Die Stem van Suid-Afrika). A few years later South Africa adopted a shortened, combined version of the two anthems with each verse being sung in a different language (isiXhosa & isiZulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans, and English). The combining of God Save the Queen, which is currently the official national anthem of Northern Ireland, and Amhrán na bhFiann would not only be almost universally unacceptable it’s also unlikely to be very pleasing to the ear, but the idea of using different languages is something that perhaps could be adopted for Ireland, using some combination of Irish, English, and possibly Ulster Scots, which is already included in the Irish passport.
Another option is to use an existing song, but one which is inoffensive to all sides as a new all island national anthem. The lyrics of ‘There is an Isle”, for example, would work perfectly, and anyone familiar with the song will know that it is about as emotive, rousing, and passionate as a song can get, making it a good fit for a national anthem. It’s also been around for nearly 100 years, having originated as a Scottish poem and then put to music by Limerick schoolteacher Anna Maria Lynch in 1924. Perhaps parts of the song could be translated into Irish and Ulster Scots, while retaining other parts in English.
There is an Isle, a bonnie Isle
Stands proudly from, stands proudly from the sea
And dearer far, than all this world
Is that dear Isle, is that dear Isle to me
It is not, that alone it stands
Where all around is fresh and fair
But because it is my native land
And my home, my home is there
But because it is my native land
And my home, my home is there
Farewell, farewell, though lands may meet
May meet my gaze, my gaze where e’re I roam
I shall not find a spot so fair
As that dear Isle, as that dear Isle to me
It is not that alone it stands
Where all around is fresh and fair
But because it is my native land
And my home, my home is there
But because it is my native land
And my home, my home is there
Whatever the ultimate decision it is a discussion that will need to be had. A border poll is likely and the public on both sides will want to be clear on what it is they are voting for. Given the emotive nature of the topic, the sooner those conversations can start the better.
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