Northern Ireland Assembly

The Member has not read the history written by the priests of his Church. Otherwise he would know that what I am saying is true.

When he proposed the motion Mr McCarthy did not tell us about the sectarianisation and politicisation of Patrick. If you go to New York you will see the great parade he refers to. Is there anyone in that parade who would give one cent to a Unionist, or to a person wanting to maintain the Constitution? The Member knows there is not. St Patrick has had a Hibernian suit and sash and an IRA suit put on him. An IRA man, well known for his terrorist activities, has led that parade. If that is not making political capital out of a certain figure who was not political at all, I do not know what political capital is.

I refuse to hand St Patrick over to the Roman Catholic Church and the embrace of the Pope, or to the IRA and Nationalists. He is a figure to be honoured and remembered. He brought the Bible gospel. In his works - the Confession, the Epistle and the Hymn - one finds set forth the simple gospel of Jesus Christ:

We should honour St Patrick and have a public holiday declared by the Secretary of State.

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I thank Mr McCarthy of the Alliance Party for moving the motion. I have major difficulty with the part of the motion calling for St Patrick's Day to be made a public holiday that is dependent on the imprimatur of the Queen or the British Government. The Alliance Party was at pains to point out that the wording of the motion was completely out of its control.

I support the spirit of the motion that St Patrick's Day should be for all Irish people. It should be for those people born on the island of Ireland who identify themselves variously as Scots, Scots-Irish, British, Chinese, Asian or of any other ethnic group, who, like those from all races around the world, join with the Irish annually in celebrating St Patrick's Day.

Seamus Heaney, in his poem 'From the Canton of Expectation', recalls a St Patrick's Day of his childhood in the North:

The St Patrick's day Seamus Heaney spoke about in his generation is not that different from the present St Patrick's Day for Nationalists.

The Derry businessman Gerry Murray wrote in the 'Derry Journal' last year

The tourist industry in the South, recognising the potential of cultural celebration, made St Patrick's Day a celebration for the Irish economy, so increasing its share of the gross national product to 7%. The North's tourism lags behind at a mere 2%.

As well as in Dublin, St Patrick's Day is celebrated all over the world, from Sydney to New York, from Washington to Paris - the list could go on. Indeed, in recent years we have seen many Members jetting off to the United States to join in the St Patrick's Day celebrations there. If we were to make St Patrick's Day a public holiday here we could give Washington a miss and kick off our tourist season at home by funding and extending the celebrations - in particular, those denied to people in Belfast and Derry. Over the years, Unionism has made successive attempts to deny Nationalist people the right to their cultural identity and the right to uphold that identity by celebrating St Patrick's Day as a public holiday, but it has only postponed the day of reckoning against the bleak cultural monolith of Six-County Unionism.

What we have seen in the amazing St Patrick's Day parades in Belfast over the last few years is what we know from our history. One can strip a people of everything except their culture. They will still have enough culture buried deep in their psyche and in their imagination and enough skill to bring tens of thousands of people on to the streets of Belfast to celebrate their diversity, their talent, their imagination and their love of the country which gave them birth. If nothing else, the success of the St Patrick's Day carnival in Belfast, despite Belfast City Council's refusal to fund it, should indicate the support in the community for its being declared a public holiday.

What a surprise it must have been to the narrow-minded begrudgers that a few tricolours should appear at the St Patrick's Day parade in Belfast, or that people should resort to wearing green. Sure it happens all over the world.

I wish to congratulate the organisers of the St Patrick's Day carnival in Belfast. Their efforts during recent years have paved the way for this motion. In line with the South, St Patrick's Day should indeed be a public holiday. There are many reasons for this, not least of which is that Nationalists will no longer accept being told how or what they should do to celebrate their identity.

I must ask the Member to bring her remarks to a close.

I should like to finish by saying that, as St Patrick indicated to the people of Ireland, the shamrock represents the Holy Trinity. It could also symbolise a uniting of Protestants, Catholics and dissenters.

In normal circumstances the subject of how St Patrick's Day could best be commemorated, given the saint's legacy, would be an extremely appropriate matter for the House to consider. Patrick was indeed a saint in the true biblical sense. He was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and dependent upon Him for his salvation. That is beyond dispute. I am sure that St Patrick would be absolutely aghast if he were here to witness how people currently celebrate his time in this land - with green beer and pagan parades. That has nothing to do with what Patrick believed or how he would have liked to be remembered.

However, this debate seems most inappropriate when we consider that last week the Ulster Unionist Party Leader, Mr David Trimble, refused the House the chance to debate the most important issue facing this community, one which requires urgent attention: decommissioning and how to remove terrorists and their guns from the democratic process.

The Member is out of order. I ask him to confine his remarks to the subject of the debate.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I shall do so.

I also remind the Member that I expect him to sit down when I am on my feet.

I will indeed.

I simply make the point that St Patrick did not have a flag. Regardless of what colour people are trying to attribute to St Patrick, or what flag, be it the tricolour or the Union flag, people here would like to associate him with, he did not have a flag. Those who attempt to politicise Patrick or attribute colours of any hue to him do him and his message a grave disservice. Patrick came to know his Saviour under the banner of the cross. That is the only standard behind which he rallied, and that is what he would wish all in this community, whether Catholic, Protestant, Unionist or Nationalist, to do also.

As the people of Northern Ireland take their first tentative steps on a new road to a pluralist society and endeavour to come to terms with the divisions which have been created, rightly or wrongly, over the last few hundred years of their history, it is indeed timely to remind them that they have another, more ancient, legacy - a shared historical and cultural inheritance of which most of them are largely unaware. This is embodied in the figure, mythological or real, of St Patrick - Patricius, the "gentleman".

Among the oldest named population groups of Ireland were the Cruthin, an ancient British people dominant in large parts of old Ulster. Their most powerful dynasty was the Dal nAraidi whose territory became known as Dalaradia. According to legend, Patrick was first brought to Ireland as a slave from Romanised Britain and sold to a Cruthin chieftain called Milchu, a petty king who ruled over part of Dalaradia near Mount Slemish in present day County Antrim. It was later, at Kells and Connor rather than Downpatrick and Armagh, that the cult of Patrick developed in its present form. The story of Christian Dalaradia is not confined to its religious or political aspects but, indeed, embraces a quite remarkable literary tradition. Proinias MacCana, who was reared in the Falls Road area of Belfast and is our finest living Gaelic scholar, summed up this rich cultural legacy of Ulster when he wrote

The immediate sources of this artistic renewal were the scriptoria of certain of the more progressive monasteries and their direct agents, those monastic literati, whom the Irish metrical tracts refer to by the very significant title "Nualitride" - the "new men of letters". While there is no reason to suppose that these individuals were confined to any one part of Ireland, the evidence strongly suggests that it was only in the east, or more precisely in the south-east, of Ulster that their activities assumed something of the impetus and cohesiveness of a true cultural movement.

In this land of Ulster, conservation and creativity went hand in hand. In Ireland the relatively new skill of writing in the vernacular began to be vigorously exploited, not only for the direct recording of secular oral traditions - heroic, mythological and the more strictly didactic - but also as a vehicle for the imaginative recreation of certain sections of that Irish tradition. One may, with due reservations, speak of this region of south-east Ulster, where Members are presently sitting, as the cradle of written Irish literature. It was in Bangor in County Down that there seems to have been an intellectual centre whence the cultural dynamic of the east Ulster region emanated.

As Mr McGrady said, Dalaradia's legacy and Ulster's legacy was not confined to these shores. Not only was there a highly productive relationship with nearby Scotland, but when Columbanus set forth from Bangor on his great missionary travels he was embarking on a journey which was to have profound significance for the rebirth of European civilisation following the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Most importantly, however, the story of Dalaradia and of that British slave who is credited with founding Christianity within it offers us hope that the people of present-day Northern Ireland may one day cease to view their different aspirations of Britishness and Irishness as a constant source of conflict and division -

I must ask you to draw your remarks to a close.

- and begin to celebrate them as proof of their divergent but shared inheritance, one which links all the peoples of these islands. When this symbiosis of their identities is established, it will provide a solid foundation for the peace they so richly deserve.

I commend the motion, and I support the amendment.

Congratulations on your new office, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I sympathise with Dr Paisley's remarks about how some people have sought to sectarianise the celebration of the cultural and religious inheritance of St Patrick for political ends. On occasions, the celebration of St Patrick's Day has been a chauvinistic exercise, which any democratic person who is sincerely patriotic would condemn. Those of us who admire St Patrick wish to see St Patrick's Day used to celebrate the diversity of Irishness rather than the narrow identification of Irishness which some would like to impose upon us.

As I have said, I sympathise with Dr Paisley, but, of course, he overreacts. St Patrick's Day is a celebration that we can all enjoy and involve ourselves in. Thanks to St Patrick, this island has traditionally been called the land of saints and scholars referring to its being an island of spirituality and learning. We should try to rediscover those things, and in that way St Patrick could once again be a unifying rather than a divisive figure.

I listened to Sammy Wilson this morning on the radio. He is opposed to this motion, and one of his arguments is that he is not Irish. How absurd. When Mr Wilson was Lord Mayor of Belfast he wore the chain of office that was presented to the city in 1874. That chain, as Dr Adamson will confirm, has a Celtic design with representations of the four provinces of Ireland. It is inscribed "Erin go bragh", meaning "Ireland for ever". The chain was presented by the Protestant and Unionist councillors and aldermen of the Corporation of Belfast because they regarded themselves very much as Irishmen. They regarded themselves as Unionists but as Irish Unionists. Being a Unionist does not mean that one is not Irish or that one should deny one's Irishness. People should celebrate their Irishness. To deny the political connotations is fair enough, but do not deny that cultural inheritance.

I cannot support the amendment. The Good Friday Agreement says about flags and emblems

Unfortunately, any flag, whether it be the Union Jack or the tricolour, creates divisions in this society. That is the unfortunate reality. We must move beyond that to a situation in which we either respect both flags on an equal footing or we create new symbols to unite the entire community -

Order. I ask the Member to address the Chair rather than Members across the Chamber.

Alternatively, we create a situation of complete neutrality, and such neutrality might well contribute to a greater sense of harmony. I regret that this amendment has been moved because it clouds what might otherwise have been unanimous support for the motion.

I have listened to some of the contributions with interest. I support the amendment, particularly as Members are talking about a person who came from the mainland and who, on his return, brought Christianity to this island. I mentioned in an earlier debate how we, at Christmas, had not acknowledged our Lord's birthday. We were celebrating the second millennium but could not raise our flag in its recognition. That was despicable and irresponsible. The First Minister and the Deputy First Minister abandoned their responsibilities. They should have ensured that the flag was flown. The First Minister pointed out that the flying of the flag is a matter of royal prerogative. For that reason, the flag should have been flown.

This is another occasion on which a unique personality should be celebrated. As Mr Alban Maginness quite rightly said, a contribution was made, not just in these islands, but to the whole of Western Europe through the movement that St Patrick set up. He brought Christianity to the Celts. Those people who are members of the Church of Ireland or, indeed, Presbyterians will have sung 'St Patrick's Breastplate'. It is almost a confession of their faith - a confession that is shared by all of the reformed faith. We should, therefore, unhesitatingly give our support to this remarkable person. He established a culture of scholarliness which, in later centuries, the Roman Catholic system, when imposed, did everything in its power to eradicate. Early Christian writings are rare and extremely difficult to find. The early contributions of many of these people are perhaps the rarest and most important relics of that age.

Dr Adamson referred to St Columbanus, who was a product of the university set up in those days. The Black Death was probably the greatest contributing factor to moving our saints on crusades to evangelise the rest of the British Isles and the greater part of Europe.

However, while recognising St Patrick and acknowledging the great part that he played in our history, in shaping a land of saints and scholars, we know that much has been eradicated and that standards have been lowered. Who can honestly associate green beer with a Christian saint? And I have no more time for a person drinking orange beer underneath an Orange banner than for someone on green beer underneath a green banner. They are lowering the standards set by the good saint who brought us Christianity.

My constituency has a particular association with St Patrick.

We have a St Patrick's law. We had a monastic settlement from where it is said he borrowed a white horse which he used to eradicate the snakes in Ireland. However, when I look around I know that Homo sapiens "snakeanus" remains in abundance.

This is a serious occasion, and if we accept the motion that this day should be a holiday, we have every right to celebrate it in freedom. We should be able to celebrate it without mockery from Nationalism, without mockery and hypocrisy from Republicanism and without anything being imposed by others who appear to have given nothing when their contributions are seen alongside the good man's bringing of Christianity to Ireland.

I support the amendment, and I hope that it will succeed.

A LeasCheann Comhairle. Cuirim fáilte roimh an rún seo. Mar Phoblachtánach, ní thaitníonn cuid den téarmaíocht liom-ní gá a rá-ach tá mé ar aon intinn le spiorad an rúin. Tá Lá Fhéile Pádraig thaire a bheith tábhachtach dúinn uilig mar Éireannaigh.

I support the spirit of the motion. It serves to highlight the nonsense of St Patrick's Day's not being an official public holiday in this part of Ireland. Why should St Patrick's Day not be a public holiday in the Six Counties? It could only happen in this part of Ireland.

It has been well ventilated, hitherto in this debate, that St Patrick's Day is celebrated throughout the world. It is a day on which people express great pride in being Irish, both in Ireland and abroad, in places like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sydney, Paris, Moscow and even Tokyo. St Patrick's Day is a wonderful statement of Irish national pride, inclusive of all religions, exiles and emigrants. It would be an odd state of affairs if Irish people who reside on the island of Ireland could not properly and officially celebrate their national day.

I agree with Mr McCarthy and Mr Maginness that St Patrick is a unifying symbol for all Irish people and that he is an important part of our common heritage, as outlined so well by Mr Adamson. His memory and image are a threat to no one. Any opposition to this motion is rooted in pettiness and in the desire to deny parity of esteem to every class and section of people here.

St Patrick's Day is for the Irish, and it would be reasonable to anticipate cross-party support for the motion. It should not be contentious.

Sin mo mhéid. Go raibh maith agat.

As other Members have said, St Patrick's Day should be recognised by all of us as a day for celebration and an opportunity for reconciliation. It should not be hijacked by anyone - [Interruption]

I ask some Members to my right not to carry on private conversations when others are trying to speak.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. We all have different ideas of equality.

St Patrick's Day should not be hijacked by any one group, church or tradition. Many of us personally identify with St Patrick's Day. I remember as a child putting on shamrock to commemorate our patron saint. In later years, I remember celebrating St Patrick's Day with many of our voluntary organisations and peace groups in the Church of Ireland's Down Cathedral in Downpatrick and then watching the parade pass through the town. It was a wonderful feeling, and I wish that it could be repeated in the future.

I also remember St Patrick's Day was a cross-community celebration. At the ceremonies in Downpatrick and elsewhere we all came together - believers and non-believers from different background and traditions - to remember the man who came to unite all the people in a spirit of goodwill and tolerance.

St Patrick's Day should not be used as a tool to divide us. This would fly in the face of the Christian message that St Patrick sought to promote. That is why it is wrong for some sections of the community to try to associate St Patrick's Day with narrow or sectional political causes.

Parades should be inclusive and representative of the various groups and organisations in the towns and cities in which they take place. That is why the Alliance Party had considerable difficulties with the proposed parade for Belfast, although it supports the concept of the Belfast parade in principle. All sections of the community recognise the important contribution made by St Patrick to Christianity in Ireland, and that view has been echoed today by other Members.

It is somewhat unfortunate that Protestants, unlike Catholics, have felt inhibited about celebrating St Patrick's Day. Catholics have never tried to hijack St Patrick. He is not a Catholic St Patrick - he is St Patrick.

I hope that in supporting the motion on a cross-community basis we can send a firm message that St Patrick should be for everybody. The case for making St Patrick's Day a public holiday is a strong one.

First, it would enable everybody to have the day off work and school and take part in the various events being held around the country. Secondly, it would enable people to celebrate St Patrick's Day with the same vigour and enthusiasm with which it is celebrated in other parts of the world. Surely it is strange that St Patrick is commemorated more abroad than in parts of his own land? Thirdly, it would enable the Government to declare a public holiday for which there is considerable cross-community support.

It is vital that we, as an Assembly and a Government, take this opportunity to promote what this community holds in common to counter what divides us all, and St Patrick can really be for all of us. Therefore, Mr Deputy Speaker, I support the motion.

I support the motion and the amendment. Why? Basically because, if passed, the amended motion would encourage the Government to act more consistently in their treatment of people in Northern Ireland and would enable greater consistency between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

In terms of consistency within Northern Ireland, a substantial percentage of employees currently gets St Patrick's Day as a holiday, but not everybody does. In terms of consistency within the United Kingdom, as my Colleague Mr Wilson has already pointed out, it is the case that St Andrew's Day in Edinburgh and St David's Day in Cardiff are already so-called national flag days when the Union flag of the United Kingdom is flown. Also, if a public building has a second flagpole, the flag of the appropriate country or principality - in our case, Province - is also flown.

As a Unionist, I do not regard the remembrance of St Patrick with any particular discomfort, though I do share the reservations that some people on this side of the House have expressed about the way in which St Patrick has been remembered in certain quarters over the years. At one time I would have approached the question of the celebration of St Patrick with some degree of agnosticism. At one point I would have agreed with those commentators who doubted if he existed at all. But I have moved beyond that point, and I now see that he may well be buried in at least two places - a formidable achievement!

As someone who was born in Great Britain, I also note with some amusement that Patrick may have been a native of the Bristol area, or south Wales, or the Scottish shore area of Solway Firth. Dr Adamson, Mr Alban Maginness and other Members have pointed out St Patrick's contribution to wider European history. Indeed, the notable historian Norman Davies, in his recent 'Europe A History', writes of St Patrick's life's work

In a sense Mr Gibson has anticipated me, for if it is indeed true that Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland, then a modern application does perhaps suggest itself as we consider some of the wider political issues facing us this week.

Let me summarise the reasons for having a public holiday to commemorate St Patrick. As has been pointed out by a number of Members, he was a Christian saint who pre-dated our Protestant and Catholic traditions, and in his life he expressed both the tragedy and triumph of relations between the two islands of Britain and Ireland.

For these reasons I support the motion and the amendment.

First, may I express some regret about the comments made by my Colleague Mary Nelis, who referred to the bleak cultural monolith of Six-County Unionism.

While there are cultural monoliths in the North, they are not exclusive to Unionism, and Members on this side of the House should recognise that cultural monoliths, and their bleakness, have been common to both of our traditions in the past - and they are not exclusive to one tradition now.

The comment was also inappropriate given that in the Chamber today we are going to have an example not of bleak cultural monoliths but of inclusive cultural thinking. It was inappropriate for that sort of comment to be made, on this day of all days. I recognise that Barry McElduff acknowledged the comments made by Ian Adamson. He is not an advocate of bleak cultural monolithism, and that was reflected in his speech.

Unfortunately, the SDLP will not support the amendment moved by the Ulster Unionist Party. However, it is important to acknowledge the reason for that. There is quite a degree of cohesion and agreement about St Patrick and what he represents in terms of culture, community and religion, and that has been reflected in the debate and in the wider community. This differentiates the issue of St Patrick from the issue of flags, and it was inappropriate, and unnecessary, to parachute into this debate something that was bound to cause a degree of division. For those reasons, as well as for those outlined by my Colleague Alban Maginness, we will not be inclined to support the amendment.

However, some comments made in this debate are a signpost to how we should conduct ourselves here and in the wider community in future.

The Nationalist people, of whom I am one, have to recognise that their identity is in a process of evolution because of our political and constitutional agreement. What it is to be Irish - and that includes our wish to share in the life of the island - is different now from what it was before. As Nationalists we have to recognise that we are being influenced by the various diaspora around the world and by our wider European identity.

Nationalists must also acknowledge that our sister island influences our identity and what it means to be Irish in the new millennium. While we are not sure what those influences mean for us, and we are not sure about how our identity will change because of them, there are influences upon our values, our culture and our way of life which have redefined us as Irish people in this part of the island.

This means that there are influences from the British island on our identity and on how we perceive ourselves that we, as people of this island, are going to have to acknowledge more fully. As we begin to acknowledge this, we must also acknowledge that there are people in this Chamber, and in the wider community, who are beginning slowly and painfully to acknowledge other influences upon their identity, influences from the whole island, which are going to mean for them a period of growth and development.

Finally, if we do not sign up to a wider celebration of St Patrick's Day and all that that means, in narrow terms, we will be letting all the community down.

St Patrick's Day, more than any other day, is the day on which this island is in the eye of the world. The world identifies with it and shares in it. This is not just a religious event. Religion is in decline, and that is a matter of regret. This is the day on which the world can see our economic opportunity, our commercial initiative and the wider opportunities that are there for the people of this island to enjoy if we grasp them. By developing our notion of what it is to be Irish and by sharing in the concept of St Patrick's Day, whatever that means to us, we can create opportunities for all the people of this island for the future.

I support the amendment to the motion, and I want to make my reasons clear. Any proposal before the Assembly to encourage the United Kingdom Government to permit the flag to fly over this part of the United Kingdom, especially at a time when we are being stripped of our British identity, will always have my support. I will not be supporting the motion.

When Mr McCarthy was proposing the motion, he apologised for its wording. I thought that he was apologising for his grammatical contortions, but he was doing what the Alliance Party does best: crawling to Sinn Féin. I am sorry that we have to appeal to Her Majesty's Government. I know that this may be offensive to Sinn Féin, but, unfortunately, this is the way in which it has to be done.

The motion itself does not make sense. If one reads the couple of contributions that Mr McCarthy has made in the Assembly one will see that he is the master of grammatical contortion. When the Hansard staff get to work on his two speeches they will be unable to get rid of his split infinitives.

I want to refer to points already made. In one sentence Mr McCarthy paid lip-service to the fact that St Patrick's Day has something to do with a religious figure. He said that St Patrick had a role in bringing Christianity to Ireland.

In the rest of his five or 10 minutes he dealt with other reasons, the non-religious aspects of St Patrick's Day, and they were well explained by himself, the SDLP and Sinn Féin. They all centre around the celebration of Ireland's national day, our national day, the day on which Irish people express their culture. Alban Maginness has, in his arrogance, tried to tell me that it is absurd to say that I am not Irish. I am not Irish, and all the arrogance and all the contorted logic of Alban Maginness will not make me Irish. I do not wish to celebrate Ireland's national day. I do not wish to celebrate the day on which Irish people celebrate their culture. I am British, and proud of it. Wearing a chain with "Erin go bragh" round my neck did not make me Irish.

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