Sinn Fein’s success in the Irish election has shaken politics on island of Ireland to the core

At the risk of being accused of using extravagant language, I suggest that this has shaken politics on the island of Ireland to its core.

It has certainly made waves south of the border, and it would be foolish to imagine they won’t winter with us: that would be a long, hard, winter.

I don’t think anyone can predict, with any accuracy, what the long term consequences will be, but one thing for sure, it’s the harbinger of change: the old order, nationalism and unionism, is crumbling.

Politics in Ireland, North and South, had become ‘safe’ and jaded, and both sides just continued to play the same old game: two aging tennis players warming up, and gently knocking the ball back and forth over the net, without getting serious: it becomes predictable, and boring.

We can dress it up whatever way we like, but this is a victory for Sinn Fein: they are empowered, on the march and rattling their sabres.

At a time when Ireland, morally and spiritually, is going through momentous change, not all for the better, it was inevitable that politics would be affected.

Those winds of change are blowing in our direction. The old order has hit dangerous currents, and no-one is safe.

The Protestant community, foolishly, has always placed its faith in unionism to survive, but it is on the wane, and we need to be careful it is not in its death throes.

If it is, we will have to shift for ourselves. Pulling up the drawbridge is no longer an option, that has been breached and the ‘narrow ground’ flooded. The old order has to engage, or risk going under.

The old slogans and symbols don’t cut it. We may yet be in the epi-centre of a revolution, and we need to be careful those winds of change don’t become a tsunami. A community in denial convinced nothing has changed will continue to wear that old threadbare garment of apathy.

When it gets to that stage, we have a serious problem.

Clive Maxwell, Bleary