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Halfpints: Ireland’s Unionist Senator
The last Irish unionist politicians were elected in the 1920s… until now. With Brexit changing everything, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar invited Armagh native Ian Marshall to run as an independent candidate for Seanad Éireann. Marshall topped the poll, becoming the first northern unionist to be elected to the Irish parliament. His candidacy was supported by the nationalist party Sinn Féin to boot. In this interview Marshall explains his staunch opposition to Brexit, what life was like for his Protestant farming family in South Armagh during the conflict in Northern Ireland, and how he feels about a potential future referendum on Irish unity.
Marshall was featured briefly on the Season 2 episode ‘Irish Politics and the Civil War’. You can listen to the full interview now on Patreon: exclusive extra content we produce to thank our patrons.
Listen here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/22855237
Irish Politics and the Civil War
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Ireland’s main political parties are not split on a traditional left-right model, but instead represent different sides of a bloody civil war in the 1920s. But why is this war spoken about so little today? Could it be that its memory is too painful? Or is it because it still so strangely dominant in modern Irish politics? In this episode, Tim Mc Inerney traces the history of Ireland’s Civil War from 1922-23, and how it shaped the country’s political landscape. Meanwhile, Naomi O’Leary pays a visits the Irish Seanad or senate in Dublin, where she meets two politicians who have been deeply influenced by Civil War politics, albeit in very different ways. One is Senator Mark Daly, a descendant from anti-treaty rebels still questing for a 32-county Ireland, and the other is Senator Ian Marshall, the first northern unionist ever to be elected to the Irish Seanad.
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A transcript of this episode is available here: https://www.theirishpassport.com/transcripts/transcript-irish-politics-and-the-civil-war/
Support this podcast Halfpints: Why the poppy divides Ireland
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A hundred years since the end of the First World War, the remembrance poppy remains a controversial symbol in Ireland. Why? Writer Kylie Noble explains what the poppy meant to her as a child growing up in Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, and how she reconciles it with her British and Irish identity today. Naomi O’Leary traces the roots of Ireland’s complex relationship with the poppy and how it intersects with her own family history, and interrogates what the fundraising appeal is for according to the accounts of the Royal British Legion. Should Taoiseach Leo Varadkar be wearing a shamrock poppy? You decide.
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Featuring Cello Duet No. 1 by Chief Boima
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