Ireland, under the present Government, threw itself open to the people of the world to come and live in it. It advertised across the world for immigrants, acting as if the era of nationalities was over and done with.
This was in accordance with the conviction of the Irish founder of the World Trade Organisation, Peter Sutherland, that the free movement of populations, following the movement of capital, was the new order of things.
The same Government is bewildered by the riot that erupted in Central Dublin in November and laid it waste. That riot has been threatening to happen since Dublin became one of the most expensive places in the world to live in.
Fine Gael Taoiseach Leo Varadkar explained that it was caused by evil. That means, in these days of enlightenment, that it had no cause. Evil, as a category of understanding, was abolished—along with Christian Doctrine as a general system of Belief—about forty years ago. Then it was a force from another world, dedicated to badness for its own sake, which intruded disruptively into the affairs of this world when this world was trying to be good.
But we have broken off relations with that other world—and yet its language persists as the last resort of a Government that aspires to govern but does not know how.
The specific form of Evil now at work is not any of the human attributes that used to be Cardinal Sins—pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth. It is Hate.
Darwin wrote a Treatise on the Expression Of Emotions In Animals. That is, he expressed the muscular contractions by which feelings were expressed. Were the feelings caused by the muscular contractions which accompanied them, or were they generated behind the muscles and express themselves by means of the muscles.
The Government has decided to abolish the feeling of Hate. It has a Bill going through the Dail to criminalise it. It is a Utopian undertaking—a dehumanising undertaking—even less feasible now than it was in the days when we had a transcendental force of Evil which we were encouraged to hate. And now, on the eve of its abolition by Government Decree, Hate has a field day—and the Government can only splutter.
The Garda Commissioner Drew Harris explains the root as being caused by a radical ideology of the Right. He is a foreigner, not used to our ways. And, only two months ago, the Garda Trade Union passed a motion demanding his replacement.
It appears that the Gardai assembled themselves to come and deal with the riot when they heard about it in the news. They were not deployed beforehand around the top of O'Connell Street, the heart of Dublin—thick with tourists, even though everybody knew it had become a danger area.
The Guards were established in 1922 as a centralised State Force by the Treaty party, which was forging itself into a State with active British support. In that respect, the Guards were patterned on the police force it was replacing. The Royal Irish Constabulary was a British State force, conducted by the British Government in Dublin Castle. However, the police force in Britain itself consisted of County Constabularies, which had a considerable degree of autonomy, while being under the purview of Local Authorities.
British policing of Ireland was directive, not representative. Britain knew very well that the condition of things it had brought about in Ireland was unsuitable for policing in the English mode. It established its Irish police as a caste above the society it policed, designed for action against it.
The Treaty party, when establishing its police, was in a similar position to the British. Much of the country was against it, submitting to it because British reconquest was presented as the alternative. The State felt insecure in relation to society and could not trust large tracts of it with local policing.
The justification was later given that State policy, over-riding local interests, averted the possibility of 'corruption' under local influence. But what is called corruption is not something simple in these matters. It is often part of a two-way process of connection, in which local difficulties could be made known to, and be acted upon, by local authority, in a way not possible to centralised State authority.
And, anyhow, centralised State policy generated problems that the State tried to solve by bringing in a foreign policeman to be Commissioner.
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