As a nationalist I agree that it is hypocritical to push Irish in unionist dominated areas

Overreach which he argued is (a) not the smart way to go about getting an Irish language act passed one day at Stormont and (b) is hypocritical given that Irish nationalists would be quick to protest if unionist councils were pushing a particular culture in nationalist areas where it isn’t wanted.

(Ben’s actual words were: ‘Is there a single nationalist who is going to speak up against this provocation and recognise that it is hardly going to bolster support for a language act?’ Part (b) of my summation comes from a comment he made on Twitter in the wake of the article was published).

I am quite happy to put myself forward as such a nationalist.

Nationalists in Northern Ireland have for many years protested at Orange marches which they deem to be offensive — ie taking place in or near “their” areas.

Their protest has been enormously successful, to the extent that the state itself and media consensus – at least in Great Britain and the Republic – have weighed in behind them.

Few indeed have been the voices which have been raised to criticise the rather reactionary idea of ‘nationalist areas’. Unionism itself of course used to dispute this idea, but the creation of the Parades Commission meant that it lost the argument.

Thus what is sauce for the unionist goose must be sauce for the nationalist gander. It is indeed hypocrisy for nationalists to insist on pushing the Irish language in areas where it might be deemed offensive — unionist-dominated areas in other words.

And if they are looking for an Irish language act to be passed at Stormont one day then they will need to grant unionists the same ‘respect’ that they have been loudly asking for these many years gone by and the same ‘right to be offended’.

A judge in the High Court in London may have recently opined that there is no such right to be offended in the law of England and Wales, but it would be bad faith indeed if Irish nationalists were to insist on English law trumping local law and custom in Northern Ireland, wouldn’t it?

Agreement in the head does not always indicate a happy heart however. Just because nationalists have gone down the road of victimhood and ghettoised space does not mean that unionists have to do the same.

Do unionists really want the permanent calcification of the two political traditions in Northern Ireland into their respective ethno-religious heartlands?

Where you can be Irish in Derry but not in Bangor, British in Larne but not in Crossmaglen?

Unionists and loyalists have certainly made valiant attempts in recent times to catch up with a victim-driven narrative that was once a nationalist monopoly.

Thus in the ‘Soldier F’ controversy in Derry a few months ago, nationalist outrage was matched pound for pound by unionist outrage.

And the reaction of a band like the Cloughfern Young Conquerors to the emollient language from the Apprentice Boys after the march was to say that they would never march in Derry again: they would dutifully retreat.

So much for fighting for the right to march!

At the end of the summer we also saw what happened when Martina Anderson had the temerity to go to an arts event in a loyalist area: her visit was slammed as a ‘cheap publicity stunt’ with politicians from the DUP, UUP and PUP claiming that the local community had been ‘treated disrespectfully’ with ‘no attempt to contact community representatives’.

Now I hold no brief for what Martina stands for, but she is an elected Member of the European Parliament for the single constituency of the entire territory of Northern Ireland.

Is that territory going to be a unified civic space where the two great and intertwined indigenous cultures of Gael and Ulster Scot can be celebrated as the patrimony of all who live here, or is it going to be a fractured land of mutually hostile Bantustans where “community representatives” police unwanted incursions from the other tribe?

Whatever the constitutional future of Northern Ireland, I believe that this is a vital question which all who love these six counties should ponder.