protests as dangerously provocative towards Thatcher As it is the Fianna Fail government is a minority hangs on to power by the grace of these parties and because its economic programme of massive austerity, like its actions on partition, is identical to their Owil. Dublin There is nothing new about Haughey's role. At every point since 1921 the government in Dublin ha! been key to securing Britist interests in Ireland.
Partition was not, and imply by force of British and Unionist arms in the Six Counties. The Free State Dublin government wagca an cvch more Drulal and bloody war to crush nationalist opposition to partition in the south. On a more minor scale the IRA campaigns against the border during the second world war and at the end of the fifties were defeated by a combination of repression south, as well as north, of the border, including mass internment.
It is a matter of the historical record that the the governments in the south have preferred this option to the alternative of a fight A large majority of the Irish people have always wanted Irish unity and independence. And, between 70 and 80 per cent of people want a united Ireland. Opposition to a united Ireland has declined since the present crisis began - down to 10 per cent in 1984 (Pols conducted by MRBI and MORI 1970, Irish unity remains writ ten into the constitution of the southern irish state.
Even popular admiration for the ideals of th IRA, though not its methods' rose in the south to 32 per cent in 1978, 41 per cent in 1980 and 39 per cent in 1984.
hard core minorite Carovet IRA's aims and methods' — twg per cent in 1978, rising . to five per cent in 1980 and (Polls conducted by IMS/Gallup •IMS 1978, 1980 1984).
So Dublin's role in policing partition has had to.be dressed. up in nationalist rhetoric.
Haughey made the political function of his party's lip service to national unity quite clear when he said in the Dail in 1985: 'We are the moral barrier against violent and abhorrent form north of ireland and what Dublin, the Church hierarchy and the British government is the determination to prevent it building up popular support in the south Hence, since the hunger strikes in 1981, the shared understanding of the need for a political strategy to stop the national movement in the north, and specifically its leadership Sinn Fein becoming . county political force One element of such a of all, the Dublin govern ment is allowing once again to be literally depopulated by mass emigration, al a tal of 30,000 leaving annually Two per cent of Ireland's population has left the since 1981 The continuing depopulation of Ireland remains perhaps the ments of British domination of Ireland historically - and the Dublin governments which play their part in upholding it.