Tough as boots
I just recorded an interview for tonight's ´óÏó´«Ã½ Newsline about Alastair Campbell's Diaries "The Blair Years". It doesn't exactly change our understanding of history but there are a couple of good anecdotes. He says the three Republican women who accompanied Gerry Adams on his first visit to Downing Street were "as tough as boots". The delegates in question were Lucilita Bhreatnach, Siobhan O'Hanlon and our very own Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew.
As the negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement reached their heights Campbell describes an atmosphere of near hysteria as the politicians and officials work around the clock to seal the deal. At one point he's called in to see Tony Blair when the prime minister is in the bath. He finds the PM playing the fool, mimicking an Irish newsreader announcing that as part of an agreement Cherie Blair is going to become a Protestant and Tony has agreed to speak with an Irish accent.
Campbell talks about the tug of war between unionists and nationalists about which cross border bodies could be set up as part of the deal and a meeting in which David Trimble and John Taylor went into the minutest detail of the smallest ideas they had about the bodies. This was nearly midnight on the night before the agreement was signed and when the two Ulster Unionists left Campbell and Tony Blair fell into hysterics, putting on Irish accents again and wondering what bodies they could come up with. "the waste paper bin emptying body" and "the screwing tops of bottles body" were two of their suggestions.
Of course there are darker moments as well as light ones. After Omagh he describes Tony Blair overruling Mo Mowlam on the security response and there are some tart observations about David Trimble as "difficult" and "graceless". Martin McGuinness also comes off better than Gerry Adams.
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Given that Alistair Campbell is the 'King of Spin', how can anything he has written in his book be credible?
Also, Campbell and Blair obviously do not know the difference between an 'Irish Accent' and an 'Ulster Accent'.
Mark
Whatever happened to Lucilita Bhreatnach? After appearing at Adams' side for ages, she (according to a brief google search) took SF's cultural brief in 2002. But I haven't heard of her since, and wondered what had become of such a prominent figure?
Forgive me Pandora, but is Ulster not in Ireland? That would make the Ulster accent, a specific type of Irish accent, would it not? A bit like saying a Glaswegian accent is not a Scottish accent or a Yorkshire accent is not an English accent!
Matt, thank you. Following your logic then a Scotsman living in Yorkshire is more likely to have a Scottish accent, not an English accent. Surely we can both agree on that? As far as I am concerned, an Ulster accent, or to be more specific, a Northern Ireland accent, is a British accent; but you are free to disagree if you prefer to pronounce the word 'three' as 'tree' go ahead!
I personally prefer to say 'three' but I take your point, a person's accent doesn't suddenly change when they move to a different place. It is your right to call the Northern Irish accent a British accent, but parts of Ulster are in the Republic, and Ulster is in Ireland in the geographic sense! And we are all in the big happy EU family...
So many strange historical anomalies, UK citizens are British, but Northern Ireland isn't in Great Britain, Ireland is part of the British Isles, but part of it isn't in the UK, and Ulster seems to fit into all 3! Our ancestors certainly have a lot to answer for!