Ireland

Watching the tiny and rather improbable figure of the Irish President, Michael D Higgins walk along the ranks of the Irish Rugby Team, he reminds me of the mismatch that has troubled this tiny island from its very early days. 


As he stares up at these giant men from a hight of no more than 5', it is a reflection of the implausibility of the people of this Emerald Isle to come together at last to find representation in one team to represent all.
Ireland's past has been a history of conflict or warring families and a refusal to properly unite against the common enemy England.
It's strange to think and indeed a triumph, in the years since the last world war, when the nations of Europe banded together to form what became the European Union, that the countries were often on the boil, set against each other.  Conditions in which the most minor diplomatic blunder could unleash the one against the other in a bloodbath.
These islands were, until recent history much the same. The Irish, the Welsh and the Scots all with a common enemy England, all continually plotting home rule, all seeking independence to fly their own flag.
Ireland though was different. First it was an island in its own right and in some way this made it both geographically and psychologically  separate. Just as the UK sees itself different to the European Project by being separated by a few miles of water so do the Irish resent their being drawn into a union.
Irish history as mentioned has been a troubled one with sections of the island being at loggerheads with other sections, each represented by fierce warrior families who needed no urging to attack each other for the slightest reason. The whole texture of society was loose and irregular without organisation or social cement. History was a set of stories passed down over the generations.
The earliest describe the Formorians and the Firbolgs, dark swarthy people, people of whom the stories become legends and describe their battles with Wizards and the like.
The duel assault, from the Vikings and the more sustained assault from the Church of Rome made the development of society difficult in so far the conflict between Pagan bloodletting and the establishment of a church which demanded the totality of your soul was a rocky road to travel.
From the prince warrior, Brian Boru to St Patrick and St Columba, the folk law and the storytelling, the illusiveness of hard facts, make the picture of Ireland's past like the mist swirling over the Bogs of Donegal or County Mayo, a difficult conjecture.
In these early times no system of representation prevailed, the family was the real root. Every head of family submitted to his chief and blood relationships were the only ties. As in Scotland these blood clans were the binding force and as such very localised. The concept of allegiance was to a centralising body was an anathema, a frame of mind which held Ireland back for centuries and which even today results in a great deal of bloody aggression  between the individual factions that represent power and local justice within the society today.
Are you "with us or against us" is not an academic question. In the answer can depend whether you see the dawn and a new day or struggle to survive the kicking.
Rough justice, a methodology born from the lack of a properly formed, political centrist position where opposition is healthy and the question of "them and us" is more analytical than realpolitik.