Why A United Ireland Isn’t Part of the UK

Dominic Sandbrook (0:09)

Hi, everybody, it is Dominic Sandbrook here, and I'm just jumping on to introduce our new bonus episode. So this is the recording of a chat that I had at the Rest Is History Festival, which as many of you all know, was held at Hampton Court Palace this summer, and a tremendous time was had by all. And one of the highlights was a conversation that I had, it was a highlight for me anyway, I don't know about anybody else. It was a conversation that I had with Irish National Treasure and a Professor of History at University College Dublin, Paul Rouse, who many of you will know from previous Rest Is History series, and we were talking about Irish history and whether things could have worked out differently, and indeed whether Ireland could possibly have remained a part of the United Kingdom. So lots to think about there, especially in the light of our new series about the troubles.

And Paul was on brilliant form, as you will now discover.

Paul Rouse (1:04)

Hello, everybody.

Dominic Sandbrook (1:06)

Hello, welcome back. It's lovely to see so many people still here. Tom Holland has not driven you away. Amazing. You're a very tolerant audience, clearly.

Well, it wouldn't be a Rest Is History Festival without a genuine national treasure. And we asked every British national treasure, and sadly, they all had other things to do.

So we've had to content ourselves with a great man, one of the most popular guests we've ever had on The Rest Is History. He first came on to talk us through the road to the Easter Rising. Then he came to talk to us about the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. And he's been on in the last few weeks in his true capacity as a great historian of sport, talking about the World Cup and dictators. So I am delighted to welcome to the stage the Irish national treasure, Paul Rouse.

Paul Rouse (2:09)

How are you doing? Thank you.

Dominic Sandbrook (2:13)

So Paul, I thought it would be fun since you were here and since I know my wife has unusually for her dragged herself out of her Cotswolds mansion to come to a Rest Is History event and there is nothing as a proud daughter of Cork that she likes more than hearing me telling her that Ireland should still be part of the United Kingdom. Yeah. So I thought there would be no better person to discuss this with than you.

Now let's start with the big picture. A North Atlantic archipelago, maybe not unlike Japan or somewhere. Japan is a unified state, but the islands of the North Atlantic are not. What I thought we could discuss in the next 45 minutes or so, before we turn it over to questions, is whether the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland could still exist. Are there roads not taken? Are there paths not trodden? Are there decisions that could have worked out differently? What are the reasons that explain why we have effectively, at least two nationalisms in these islands? Of course, four, if you include Scotland and Wales. I know we do too much Welsh history on the podcast. So, you picked out a few crucial moments in the tangled histories of Britain and Ireland.

I guess we'll just start at the beginning. So, what is the point at which Irish history starts to diverge and to become distinctive from that of the island of Great Britain, would you say?

Paul Rouse (3:46)

So, I'll say, first of all, I met Catherine for the first time earlier and she's absolutely with me on this argument. That's already nailed down.

I think it's the point of divergence. I think you have to start from geography. And the fact of this, the fact of there being an Irish sea is fundamentally important to explaining what happens afterwards. It's the shared landmass. It explains, I think, in part, the fact that there is a Britain with Wales and Scottish nationalism, Welsh and Scottish nationalism, along with English nationalism, which of course is in full flare at the moment, on one island, and on the island of Ireland.

Dominic Sandbrook (4:36)

Yeah.

Paul Rouse (4:37)

I think the separate development of its history is in part related to that geography, to the difficulties for so many centuries of transit, to the fact that the world that we now live in, the world that we understand is a world where distance has been absolutely annihilated. So we can send a text message which lands, those of you who come from America, you send a message now, it's home instantly.

Dominic Sandbrook (5:06)

Yeah.