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MacDonald walks the border of history


In his new book, journalist and author Darach MacDonald explores the sociological, historical, cultural and familial impacts of the Irish border, which seems to have been one of the most underestimated and least considered implications of Brexit. “It struck me from the beginning that


everybody talks about the Irish border as though this is just a logistical problem, and everyone assumes, and unionism assumes, that if they can find a technological solution around the customs problems, everyone will be fine,” Darach said. But this is far from the case, he said. “Hard Border: Walking Through a Century of Irish Partition” (New Island Books, 2018) explains the ways in which the border looms large in people’s lives, and why the more obtrusive it becomes, “the more it makes people feel uneasy”, he said. Darach’s new book, his fifth, is something of a


travelogue of the abandoned 46-mile route that he walked along the Ulster Canal, from Lough Erne to Lough Neagh, but it is far more than that. Using journalism, memoir, history, and culture, Darach covers the history of the border through the people he met there, the lives lived there, and the decisions made elsewhere whose impacts are still being felt in communities the border runs through. “It surprised me that so much of the history of


the region has been ignored and neglected,” Darach said. “The historical narrative on both sides ignores what happened on the border simply because what happened on the border didn’t concern them. It was peripheral.” Rather, Darach described the border as “hugely pivotal”. He said he believes that the Irish people have suffered two huge national traumas in modern history: the Famine and partition. Partition “altered our vision or our concept of the Irish nation. It divided us”, he said. Until then, Ulster unionist leaders such as Edward Carson


Darach MacDonald, at the Belfast launch of his new book, “Hard Border: Walking Through a Century of Irish Partition”.


and James Craig considered themselves Irish men, and Dublin considered them Irish men as well. “After partition, unionists in the six counties


appropriated the name Ulster and excluded the 70,000 to 80,000 [Unionists] in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal,” Darach said. “They felt utterly betrayed and sold out by fellow unionists who had signed a covenant to stand by them.” In the same way, nationalists in the six counties felt abandoned by the Free State. “We didn’t fight a Civil War over partition; it


barely entered the treaty debates,” he said. “But it happened, and it was traumatic.” The border tore apart communities that had


existed there. For example, Darach, a Clones native, noted that the hinterland of his home parish stretches into Fermanagh. Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland First Minister, “comes from my parish,” MacDonald said, adding, “But I don’t come from hers.” He said if unionists along the border don’t see partition as being successful, at least they see it as being complete. And that view has dictated unionists’ lack of appreciation for how concerning the border issue is to nationalists, who see any strengthening of partition as an aggression. “The ‘best’ border that we’ve ever had is the one that now exists, simply because it’s barely there,” MacDonald said. Whatever happens, he said, that ‘best border’ has been compromised by the Brexit referendum.


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