viewpoint


Why did the media not ask the Irish question?


British Brexit coverage missed a main issue, says Séamus Dooley As the backstop emerged in November


I


rish Times cartoonist Martyn Turner uses an acerbic pencil and can always be relied upon to get to the point.


One of my favourite Turner cartoons


features the Queen of England commenting that no Queen’s Speech would be complete without reference to Northern Ireland. In the next panel, she is seen waving a large handkerchief as she declares: “Hello, Northern Ireland.” It is a supreme irony that the two


features analysing the media coverage of Brexit in the October-November edition of The Journalist did not even doff a hat in the direction of Northern Ireland. The omission is all the stranger because Raymond Snoddy is from there. He knows better than most the complexities of Anglo-Irish relations, of the vital importance of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement and the deep political divisions that materialise whenever the border is mentioned. It used to be called the Irish question. And, as Denis MacShane is a former minister for Europe, it’s hard to believe he is unaware of Northern Ireland. Anyone writing on “the uncertain fate of Britain” cannot be blind to the uncertain fate of Northern Ireland or of the failure of the UK media to adequately explore the implications for UK/Irish relations of the referendum. The problem that dared not speak its


name – the Irish dimension – was simply ignored by all but a handful of journalists and media organisations. I may be partisan but one of the few


journalists who seemed to get the full implications of Brexit was Tony Connelly, RTÉ’s Europe editor and a former colleague at the Irish Independent in Dublin.


Born in Antrim, educated in Derry and Dublin, Connelly brought local knowledge, expertise and political nous to his coverage. His performances on British TV were impressive. I followed British coverage – radio,


TV, print and digital – from my home in the oldest part of Dublin, the Liberties. I can’t say European affairs usually float the boat of punters in Fallon’s pub under the shadow of St Patrick’s Cathedral or are a burning topic of conversation among Meath Street stallholders – but Brexit captured the attention of the Irish public from day one. It was not just the chattering classes on this side of the Irish sea who followed the referendum. We Irish strongly value our ties with


Britain. We are united by connections of history, politics, sport, family and, for many Irish journalists, our trade union. We also value the peace brought about by the Good Friday Agreement and watched with horror from afar the unfolding threat to that fragile creation. What struck me was that two central issues – workers’ rights and the implications for Northern Ireland – received little attention in the British media. Inevitably, elections and referendums are personalised but, above the din, there could and should have been meaningful media analysis. When the result was announced, scant regard was paid to the result in Northern Ireland, where the majority voted to remain. That blind eye was a harbinger of


what was to come. When the Democratic Unionist Party assumed a powerful position in Westminster, many journalists suddenly found themselves trying to figure out what was going on ‘over there’.


2017, the heretofore forgotten border suddenly became relevant. Connelly described the Brexit negotiators’ clause as an “innocuous-sounding paragraph … the infant that would grow into the single most intractable source of conflict in the negotiations”. There are genuine challenges for


media organisations in comprehensively covering such a major story. Given the intricacies of border controls and VAT or John Bercow v Boris Johnston, it’s probably not surprising that hard facts were obscured by theatrical tantrums. Significant sections of the media, such as The Sun, the Telegraph and the Daily Express, tried to turn Taoiseach Leo Varadkar into what Roy Greenslade, writing in the Guardian, described as the Brexit Bogeyman. The Mail on Sunday once said that Theresa May loathed him. The British and Irish public paid the


“ ”


price for the lack of a proper analysis from day one. The failure of the British media to hold the political class to account in relation to Northern Ireland is worthy of serious examination. On the morning the referendum


When the result was announced, scant regard was paid to the result in Northern Ireland, where the majority voted to remain


result was announced, I sent a text to an NUJ colleague, quoting from the Second Coming by WB Yeats: Things fall apart; the centre


cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon


the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,


and everywhere The ceremony of innocence


is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while


the worst


Are full of passionate intensity. A vision of anarchy in the UK? The media should have seen it coming.


theJournalist | 09


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