Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Dublin Letter: God-Spell v Parent PowerAuthor(s): Richard StewartSource: Fortnight, No. 65 (Jul. 5 - 31, 1973), pp. 9-10Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25544629 .

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Fortnight 9

once fall within the definition of 'politi cal'.

The only decisions which might be of some assistance to the courts in the Re

public if they wished to ignore this clear line of authority are of a rather different

character. It is accepted law that anar

chists are not to be considered political criminals. And in a case decided by the House of Lords earlier this year it was

held that a Taiwanese who attempted to murder the vice-premier of Taiwan on a

visit to New York could not object to his extradition from Britain (where he had been landed following an illness on a

flight from Sweden to New York) since he was not at odds with the US govern

ment.

Ii WAS A FOUTlCAL SOtfoF fiftPE,

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In the same case Lord Diplock sug gested that a* distinction might be made between robbery with a view to gaining funds for a political cause and a case of

political assassination, the former being too remote from the political objective to come within the law.

Another possibility for the judges in the Republic might be to take a tougher

line on what amounts to political crime in view of the terrorist character of

many IRA offences. In the Polish sea

men's case Lord Goddard suggested that it was necessary on humanitarian

grounds to give a wide interpretation to

'political' in cases where those con

cerned were seeking political asylum from oppressive regimes. Perhaps in

dealing with the IRA the courts might seek to apply a correspondingly narrow

definition on similar humanitarian

grounds, for instance in respect of car

bombs and the like.

The fact remains, however, that in

purely legal terms many of the offences

committed by IRA men are clearly of a

political character. The IRA is engaged in a political rebellion, unlike the UDA

or the UVF who by no stretch of the

imagination could be considered to be

seeking to overthrow the government of

the Republic. In addition there are dif

ficult constitutional questions being raised on behalf of Doherty, Bryson and

McLoughlin arising out of the assertion

in the Republic's Constitution of juris diction over the whole island of Ireland.

If this is given its full effect by the I

judges, it would be theoretically im- j

possible to agree to the extradition of I

anyone to the North. Nor can the execu- I

tive intervene to put matters right. The I

only executive power is to refuse to I

permit an extradition, not to order one I

where the courts have decided it to be I

unlawful. I If these arguments are correct?and I

we shall soon see whether they are when I

the current batch of appeals come be- I

fore the courts in Dublin?it follows I that the law will have to be altered to I

permit any substantial change in the I

current position. One possibility would I

be the signing of a new treaty between I

Britain and the Republic for a common I

law enforcement area in which the poli- I

tical crimes rule would not apply. The I

strange thing is that none of the respon- I

sible ministries in Belfast, Dublin or I

London seem to have given the matter I

any thought. There are no reports of I

any discussions on the question of a new I

treaty. Given the very real possibility I

that the judges in the South will feel I

hound to apply the law as they find it, it I is about time that the authorities I

started to make contingency plans to I

remedy the situation. I

PnMin Letter

God spell v

Parent Power

Richard Stewart

The Northern elections have elicited

the usual massive outbreak of apathy from the people of the Republic, more

interested, it seems, in the outcome of

the Irish Sweeps Derby. The summer

holidays are beginning (although for the Dail it looks like a long, hot summer, with both the Finance Bill and the con

stituency revision bill promised before the recess) and there is a general run

down in political and social activity. The summer wiH not necessarily be a

totally silly season. July 31st, for ex

ample, shares with December 31st the

distinction of being one of those dates on which major political statements

with implications that might prove em

barrassing to the Government tend to

be made. By the time people have re

turned from their holidays or recovered

from their hangovers, the theory goes, the awkward revelation or the major shift in policy will have been safely

forgotten.

More power to the Department of

Education, therefore, for taking at least one bull by the horns and making one

major policy statement before the sum

mer's heat dehydrates the collective in

telligence of the electorate.

The place was Athlone: the occasion

the annual general meeting of the As

sociation of Catholic Primary School

Managers. The speaker was Mr. Sean

O'Connor, Secretary of the Department of Education, speaking with the ap

proval of his Minister, Mr. Richard

Burke. The message was that parents had to be involved in the running of

primary schools, and that schools at all

levels would have to face up to the fact

that the regionalisation of the national

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10 Jury! 1973

education system was on the cards.

In the dim and far-off days of 1968, Mr. O'Connor, the Assisitant Secretary of the Department, wrote an article for

the Jesuit-edited review Studies in

which he first of all detailed Govern

ment policy on education, and then

went on to note a few of his own modest

suggestions for improving the educa

tional system, ending up with the

equally modest aspiration that the

(Catholic) religious should be involved

in education as partners rather than as

masters.

For this series of heinous crimes his

article in Studies was bracketed by a

salvo of refutations written by persons, both clerical and lay, who had been

shown the typescript of his article and

invited to comment on it. It was rather

as if a British submarine in World War II had suddenly found itself alone on

the surface between the Scharnhorst

and the Graf Spee. When the water

spouts from the cannonade had sub

sided, Mr. O'Connor was observed to be

still intact: but the ferocity of the reac

tion served notice on the onlookers that

most of the ingredients for a traditional

Church-State confrontation were still

ready to hand.

When Mr. O'Connor, therefore, stood up before a collection of Catholic

priests in Athlone and told them that

oligarchy, however benevolent, was no

longer the way to run an educational

system, there was a sharp intake of

breath on all sides. The reaction was as

had been anticipated?but in kind

rather than in degree. In other words, there was no shortage of elderly clerics to complain that this would be the thin

end of the wedge in the "secularisation"

of the Republic's schools (whatever that

may mean), but there was also an at

tempt by the more sophisticated clerical

managers to salvage the situation be

fore it got out of hand and to ensure

that their bargaining position was not

thrown away by the more intemperate of their brethren.

The most intemperate statement of

all, interestingly enough, came not from a Catholic but from a Church of Ireland

clergyman: in all of this there are ob

viously fresh possibilities for ecumen

ism.

The more sophisticated Catholic re

actions, therefore, range from the "we

thought of it first" argument to a call

for "evolution" in management struc

tures (translation: "Everybody form

fours behind me while I think up a

response to this one"). The clerical

managers insjst that they are not inter

ested in power for its own sake? but

have yet to provide convincing evidence

that they require it for anything else.

This was underlined by the priest (again a Jesuit: I hope Ian Paisley is reading the Fenian Press) who scolded the cleri

cal managers for knowing nothing about education and for therefore put

ting their control of the system at risk.

In fact the greatest threat to clerical

oligarchy comes, not from the proposal to involve parents in the management of

primary schools, but in the proposal for a decently regionalised system of educa

tion throughout the Republic. This

means, hopefully (and there are signs that the Department is serious about it)

the creation of a reasonably democratic

education system which would put an

end to the endless hugger-mugger that

goes on between the Department and

the bewildering variety of educational

"interests" of every denomination be

hind closed doors in Dublin.

In a man-to-man slugging match of

this kind, when nobody is present to see

that the Queensberry rules are ob

served the majority chirch has a patent

advantage. In a democratically-organ

ised system it will have to defend its

policies to an increasingly articulate

and independently-minded public. If it

has any.

SIDELIMES

These PR elections may not be democ

racy, if Bill Craig is to be believed, but

they're jolly good fun. Unfortunately the television and radio coverage leave out all the interesting details and just ceaselessly regurgitate the facts of elec tion or elimination without telling us the fascinating little details of whose

surplus went where etc. The really interesting part comes

when one goes through the results in the

newspapers. It's good fun imagining, for instance, what sort of nut votes

Brian Faulkner 1, O'Reilly (Ind. Na

tionalist) 2. At least two people did just that. And then in North Down, the con

stituency that proved once again that the Unionist Party can put up a donkey and get him elected, we had donkey Kilfedder spreading his surplus far and

wide to the SDLP, NILP and Alliance. It happened the other way round up in

Derry where there were John Hume voters who gave their second prefer ences to VU PP and the Unionists. The

prize, perhaps, for having the most

intelligent supporters should go to

Gerry Fitt in North Belfast. His surplus didn't turn up one single vote for seven

of the ten Unionist and Loyalist candi dates. The SDLP, in general, seem to be much better at that sort of thing since

Paddy O'Hanlon in Armagh and Austin Currie in Fermanagh managed to keep their surplus votes exclusively on their side of the sectarian divide. Another thing the SDLP seem to be

good at is raising campaign funds.

Strangely they received handouts usu

ally in the form of personal gifts to one

or other of their six former Mrs instead

of straight into Party . funds. Trade

unions from the South are known to

have been not ungenerous in their sup

port. They also raised a thousand or so

at a ?4 a head dinner, complete with

pipers between each course. The infatu

ation Paddy Devlin has with his work

ing class uniform (to be worn on all

occasions regardless, and good for him .

. . I do the same myself!) meant they couldn't make it as formal an occasion

as perhaps it should have been. Paddy's dress could have got them into more

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