Tag Archives: Lord Bew
The End isn’t nigh
Back in 2008 Arthur Aughey wrote of “Endism” as a radical version of Hegel’s Philosophy of History, the appeal of which is its suggestion that ‘the good is already fulfilled just in virtue of the fact that it is in the process of being fulfilled’ (J McCarney Hegel on History). In this radically transformative understanding, expectation becomes fact.
In that respect, the short article identified ‘Endism’ as an essential component of ‘nationalist thinking’. This essay expands significantly on that article, developing and defining the idea of ‘Endism’ and what we are to make of it today.
Keep your head on
In his excellent study of Ideology and the Irish Question, Paul Bew quoted a Ballymoney Free Press editorial of May 1912 at the height of the Irish Home Rule crisis. ‘The statement of Unionist Ulster’, it announced, ‘is that it merely wants to be let alone’. Unfortunately, ‘since Satan entered the Garden of Eden good people will not be let alone’. Unionists want to be ‘let alone’: unfortunately ‘good people will not be let alone.’
We are again at one of those moments which echoes that Ballymoney Free Press editorial. What has changed today is the sense of urgency and opportunity. Republicans are determined not to let Unionists alone on the matter of Irish unity.