From Whitewash to Mayhem: The State of the Secretary in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Kevin Boyle remarked to the Opsahl Commission in 1993 that, around the dinner tables of England, Northern Ireland is not considered a polite topic for conversation. He spoke as one of the large number of people recently referred to in an Irish Sunday paper as Northern Irish Professional People Living in England, or ‘nipples’. Few of them would disagree. His tone was one of resignation. His point was that, when mainland political or social problems surface, British society at large loses interest in, and accords little importance to, Northern Ireland. Most of Professor Boyle’s fellow nipples would endorse his views with little surprise, and look with sanguine resignation at those British dinner tables. But they, and their compatriots in Northern Ireland, share a suspicion that the same disinterest applies to the British Cabinet table too. And on that point, they are less forgiving.