Ulster At The Crossroads – yet again. Part One

    By Willie Drennan.

Ulster Crossroads

  Arrival at the Crossroads.

Terence O'Neill may have coined the phrase, ''Ulster is at the Crossroads” but Ulster has been at the crossroads on many occasions throughout history. It at least goes back to the time of Cuchulain, Macha and Finn McCool. But I suspect they weren't the first to have had to make decisions around their territory and how to deal with invaders. In more recent times the Gaels,Vikings, Anglo-Normans and Nazis have all had a go at captivating the territory of Ulster.

The most recent invader from beyond is of course the almighty European Union regime with its central authorities in Brussels Strasbourg and Berlin. The difference this time round is the sophistication of the invader. They have been long been strategising the taking over of territory by stealth: by manufacturing a complex system of dependency where the obedient and the devoted get suitably rewarded and the dissenters get silenced, obstructed and ridiculed. Their sophisticated scheme has been designed to take control so subtly that the native peasants don't even realise it's happening.

They have taken the time-tested strategy of divide and conquer to a whole new level. No need for even a single shot to be fired across the bow any more. And there's no place easier to divide and conquer than Northern Ireland with its already well established historic division.

Not everyone seems to realise this yet but Northern Ireland is now at a crossroads where we must decide to take the road we're being herded down, that leads to Brussels, or try to take the road away from the EU that the UK has chosen to take.

There is currently no official road in between. Well, okay there is an unexplored barely trodden pathway that heads off in another direction – out into the Middle of Nowhere where it gradually disappears into obscurity amidst a fog of bushes, brambles and briers.

There has to be an alternative pathway, currently within the UK, that respects democracy and yet allows democracy to determine future pathways.

The alternative barely trodden pathway does require urgent exploration. Time for Ulster to take the pathways of Robert Frost and Henry David Thoreau?  An exciting new adventure may await beyond the fog of bushes, briers and brambles should we decide to take our very own different road.

Different Road

See Part Two and  Part Three