Tom Nairn and the inevitability that never quite happens
There was a conference earlier this month in Edinburgh on the work of the late Tom Nairn, the Scottish political theorist best known as the author of The Break Up of Britain, published in 1976.
The symposium, The UK’s Crisis of Democracy: a Conference Salute to Tom Nairn, of course carved out time to discuss Northern Ireland.
“All present believed re-unification inevitable and that a united Ireland would be led by Sinn Fein’s Mary-Lou”, was the concise summary offered by one observer.
A cosy consensus. Perhaps it’s worth reminding ourselves what Nairn actually wrote about Northern Ireland.
1976
“The Protestants are the real centre of the historical action…
“It is more likely than not that the EEC and UNO will be graced before the end of the present decade by an improbable newcomer with about two-thirds the size and population of the existing Northern Ireland.” [source: The Break-up of Britain, chapter 5]
1977
“Since the original version of this chapter was written [ie chapter from which the previous quote was taken], the principal developments in Northern Irish politics have been the world famous Peace Movement, and a noticeable drift towards the idea of independence as the only possible way out of the dilemma.” [source: The Break-up of Britain, post-script to chapter 5]
1995
“A few weeks ago new leaders of Ulster Unionism like David Ervine, Chris McGimpsey and Ian Paisley Jr attended a Glasgow conference sponsored by Scotland on Sunday. Articulate, aggressive, yet in search of compromise, their collective voice sounded to me like that of a new civic nationalism which could in time easily be ranged beside those already functioning in Scotland and Wales. None wanted the old Stormont parliament back. More surprisingly, none wanted the old Unionism either: ideas of an impossible integration — the equivalent of Algérie française — had vanished along with the dependency cargo-cult. Instead, the British Union was depicted variously as an umbrella or an external guarantor of Northern Ireland’s autonomy: roles in the long run probably better played by Europe than by Britain.” [source: LRB, 1995]
So Northern Ireland was to play its part in the inevitable break-up of Britain, but it was Ulster prods who would deliver the coup de grace. And the telling moment was always just around the corner.
Nairn’s prediction was hopelessly wrong. In 1998, the year of the Good Friday Agreement, 6% of Northern Ireland was in favour of independence (NILT). By 2022 that figure was 7%. (Support for unifying with the rest of Ireland has risen modestly from 22% to 31% over the same period, according to NILT). Like Zeno’s arrow, Northern Irish history is always travelling towards a target it will never reach.
His odd fixation on an Ulster nationalism that never quite arrives offers an insight into where he goes wrong more broadly. Everything he observed was filtered through his particular view of nationalism as a response to “uneven development” across the world.
My point isn’t that Nairn was entirely wrong on Northern Ireland: he’s actually very insightful on what he calls the myths of atavism and anti-imperialism.
But in “saluting” an influential thinker, it’s worth engaging with what he actually thought. And in so doing, pondering how he got it so wrong and whether, perhaps, the panellists may too be following their worldviews to equally cosy and incorrect conclusions.
