McHugh's Miscellany - Is it time to stop being neutral on the neutrality issue? 

El Presidente Higgins has been speaking off script again over the last week, expressing some long held beliefs, nigh concerns, about the way Irish neutrality is being interpreted or redefined or whatever term you may wish to apply to it. 

And in more recent days, his son, Michael Jnr, who worked with the Irish delegation to the UN in the Big Apple stated his disappointment at the "Consultative Forum on International Security Policy" being held this week in NUIG, where he said peace was not even being discussed at the forum.

President Michael D Higgins was always a bit of a maverick and never sang from the same hymn sheet as other political aficionados down the years, before he replaced Mary McAleese in Aras an Uachtarain. 

I don’t necessarily agree with all the sentiments expressed in his occasional observations and which his detractors might call outbursts, but as sure as night follows day, he is absolutely right to express himself as the President of the Republic of Ireland.

I think he is erudite in his thinking and in in age of increasing fake news and growing chaos, he is a great counter balance to all those that have vested interests, other than the interests of the people of Ireland, whom he ultimately serves. 

Yes, he has responsibilities in his role but expanding that to him being neutered in all things political, is a bit of a farce in 2023. And yes, I am aware of his constitutional responsibilities!

To boot, the great thing is not so much about what he said or did not say. 

It finally seems to have opened up a conversation that has always been nuanced when it comes to our famous ‘neutrality’.

And what we need is an honest conversation. 

Taoisigh, Tanaistí, dissenters, peace activists and forums are all part of that equation that must address this topic.

In truth, the reason we took neutrality on board during the Emergency or World War 2 was not crowned with mystic aspirations of world peace and the like.

It was a much simpler case of us not wanting to coalesce with the very country that we had been fighting for hundreds of years to escape from and to which we succeeded, but only to a certain degree. 

We never set out our stall as a neutral country, to maintain peace in the world. 

It sort of evolved, osmosis-like, for being so long under threat from the big Imperial hunter. Today when every answer to conflict seems to be more weaponry, Ireland plays a leading role both at the United Nations, its multiple peacekeeping missions.

It  offers a reality check for those countries that simply cannot cough up the cash to arm themselves to the teeth, for risk of infiltration by an enemy, be that physical or increasingly, through cyber attacks and AI technology. 

We all saw how the political situation changed, almost overnight, regarding long held views on neutrality in Sweden and Norway, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In truth, every Irish citizen would probably want us to remain neutral in the future, but that does not necessarily equate leaving us, as a sitting duck, to the bullies that surround us, be it by land or the high seas. 

I think that now is a good time for that honest debate, and as has happened in the past, to realise that people in this country are no fools and can up their own minds, not necessarily by some bunch of international thinkers, generals and experts, but let us embrace the debate! 

Ireland should retain its neutrality, but we need to understand what we mean by that, what we want from it and how we are going to achieve it. The greatest fear is that 'neutrality'coud be lost through the back door despite all these 'locks' that are there to prevent it.  

Agus ar deireadh 

One thought that struck me in recent days (the pun realised on self editing!) is the term Thunderstorm, because it is not the thunder that causes the danger, but rather the lightning. 

The thunder will not kill you, generally does nor perforate the eardrum or cause the huge deposits of water that often accompany the thunder and the lightning is the big threat and indeed, main threat to life. 

Maybe if we renamed them lightning storms, people might take it a bit more seriously, as some people don't. 

The other thing that I find interesting is that when we were growing up, we calculated how far the storm was away by counting the interval between the clap of thunder and the flash of lightning. 

Today the storm is said to be 5 kms away, not 5 miles. Now, our quick metric guide when I was also growing up for a quick calculation was that 5miles was equal to eight kilometres. 

I much prefer to be assured that the thunderstorm is five miles away, not 5kms. 

And the thunder rolled . . .