The Theoretical Solution to the British/Irish Problem: Using the General Theory of a Federal Kingdom Clearly Stated and Fully Discussed in This Thesis

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© 2013 by Michael Gillespie. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse  09/29/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8204-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8205-4 (e)

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

The Introduction  The life circumstances out of which this book has arisen

Chapter 1   Types of Constitution

Chapter 2   Various Aspects of the General Theory of a Christian Federal Kingdom applied to Ireland in Sections 11 to 17

Chapter 3   British Constitution and Ireland in the 18th century

Chapter 4   British Constitution and Ireland in the 19th century

Chapter 5   British Constitution in Ireland in the 20th century

Chapter 6   The Troubles and British Constitution

Chapter 7   A Culture of Violence in Ireland

Chapter 8   Ernst Freidrich Fritz Schumacher

Chapter 9   The National Government of Ireland Act

Chapter 10   Conclusions

Appendix A   My childhood and community background

Appendix B   An analysis of pupil attitude in schools in Derry/Londonderry to the constitution of Northern Ireland

Appendix C   A Realistic Look at Flags and Constitutional Crests.

About The Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In writing this book I am indebted to the scholarly work of Professor Bogdanor of Oxford who is an authority on the constitution and for his distinction between the Old and the New British Constitution. With out Professor Bogdanor’s work on the New and Old British Constitution this book could not have been written. I am also indebted to Professor Hatfield of Essex for her scholarly work on the Constitution of Northern Ireland. In writing about Northern Ireland I followed the Professor’s spade work planting some ideas of my own in her wake.

I am indebted to George Anderson the President of the Forum of Federations for his exposition on a Federation as I am to Michael Burgess Reader in Politics at Hull for his delineation of a Confederation and a Federation which I have used. I have also made use of Professor Wheale’s classic work on Federalism

I am indebted to Professor Foster of Oxford, Professor Paul Bew of Queen’s University ATQ Stewart and others for their scholarly work on Irish history.

I am indebted to the writings of the eminent economists E F Schumacher Amartya Sen and Professor Stiglitz as I am to the writings of the eminent philosopher J S Mill in writing this book

I have also made use of Wilipedia in writing this book. Some academics may frown on Wilkipedia as a research tool. However I found it an accurate source of reliable and accurate information on aspects of this book.

Shane O’ Donnell of Dublin an art student at the Art College in Belfast undertook the design of The Royal Flag of Ireland. Tony Deery a lecturer in computing at the North West Institute in Derry gave advice on the use of the computer in the design of the flag. Charles Ashburner a vexillologist with Mr Flag LTD of Swansea gave the flag a professional finish. As the Royal flag of Ireland is a new and original creation requiring skill labour and judgement it is subject to copyright and cannot be copied without the author’s permission.

I sincerely thank the principals of those schools in Derry who allowed their pupils to take part in the research. I sincerely thank the teaching staff who administered the research and the pupils who undertook the research task.

Michael Gillespie

PROLOGUE

While this thesis is about the historic British/Irish Problem it is not just another book on Irish history. Historians have a severe drawback in that they describe but don’t prescribe. They can describe events and problems but are lax in prescribing remedies for these. Economists have a similar limitation. They can describe problems but have difficulty in prescribing remedies. Charlie Haughey said that if he were to ask ten economists the answer to an economic difficulty he would get ten different contradictory answers. To look at the matter in another way suppose all your doctor could do is describe your ailment but was unable to prescribe a remedy for it, it would be a waste of time talking to your doctor.

While this thesis describes the nature of the Irish Problem it does more. It prescribes a remedy for it. In that sense this thesis is an improvement on books on history or economics. You are invited to read the book and find out about the nature of the Irish Problem in British Constitution and consider the prescribed remedy. You are free to make up your mind about the prescription. Should the Irish swallow the medicine and be cured or should they wash the medicine down the sink as too strong and distasteful? The verdict is yours. One can lead a horse to water but one can’t make the horse drink.

Michael Gillespie Author.

THE INTRODUCTION

The life circumstances out of which this book has arisen

I grew up in rural Tyrone close to the border with Donegal. I went to a primary school in the parish that had mixed Catholic and Protestant pupils. Passing the eleven plus exam I went as a border to St Columb’s College in Derry. I was in the same year as John Hume. After that I got a third level education at St Joseph’s and St Mary’s Colleges of Education and also at Queen’s University Belfast. I took up my first teaching appointment in St Colman’s Secondary School in Strabane in Tyrone. John Hume was also a member of the school staff. I taught English.

After a number of years teaching in Strabane John Maultsaid the school principal moved to be the principal of a school in Derry and took most of the St Colman’s staff with him. I had married at the time and myself and my wife decided we would go to London. In London I taught English to the English in Sunbury on Thames. When in London I was an active supporter of the Labour Party which at that time was old labour. Sunbury on Thames was a wealthy stockbroker belt and my wife and I were living in rented accommodation and as the purchase of a house was above our means we decided to return to Belfast where property was cheaper. IN Belfast we could afford to buy a bungalow in a smart development called Glengoland. The development consisted of young families who were fifty/ fifty Protestant and Catholic. However the troubles descended on Belfast and the protestant families sold up and moved to safe protestant districts.

I had found a teaching post in the Andersonstown district in Belfast (a hard-line Republican Stronghold) with an international teaching order of the Catholic Church called the La Salle Brothers. At this time I joined a teacher’s union called The Irish National Teacher’s Organisation and became a union activist. The INTO was founded in 1868 after the famine by Vere Foster a teacher, to fight for better pay and working conditions for teachers. It is the biggest teachers union in all Ireland and also perhaps the oldest. At the time of founding in 1868 and for a long time after the membership was made up of Catholic and Protestant teachers. With the partition of Ireland in 1922 the union split between Catholic Nationalist teachers who supported the Tricolour and Protestant Unionist teachers who supported the Union Jack. The Protestant teachers in N. Ireland formed a break away union the Ulster Teacher’s Union as a union for Protestant teachers who taught in Protestant schools. This left the INTO as a union in N Ireland with Catholic members working in Catholic schools. When I joined the INTO in the Late Sixties there were a few protestants remaining in the INTO but these left when the troubles erupted in N. Ireland making the union membership wholly Catholic. In Belfast the unions consist of Tricolour Catholics teaching in Catholic schools on the Falls Road in West Belfast with the break away union consisting of Union Jack Protestants teaching in Protestant schools in the Shankill and Sandy Row. The INTO encapsulates the divisive history of Ireland from 1868 to the present day. When I was president of the INTO in West Belfast the sectarian divide was deep seated and couldn’t be crossed. However I understand that nowadays the UTU and INTO member’s representatives attend each others annual conferences but the sectarian divide in the teacher’s unions is still there with the INTO seeing itself as the mother union. I was elected President of the INTO union branch in West Belfast which was the largest union branch in Ireland. The troubles were at their height and West Belfast was the cockpit of the troubles. This was during the Harold Wilson premiership and selection at eleven was being disputed and the introduction of Comprehensive Schools being advocated. These issues became part of my remit as union President and as it was union policy to back the Labour proposals as union president I campaigned actively for this. In N Ireland the policy of scrapping selection was defeated by a powerful grammar school lobby.

At this time something happened in the school that was to have a profound effect on my teaching career and on my life. One afternoon a teacher called Jim Purvis who was the school representative for the union The National Association of Schoolmasters as the union was then known, came to my room with a look of concern on his face and told me that some of his members were saying that the school vice principal Brother Andrew was a member of The Provisional IRA and was recruiting sixth form pupils into the Fianna which is the junior wing of the IRA. Jim and I discussed this but decided there was little we could do as we had no evidence.

Some time after this, an incident within the school grounds convinced me there was substance in the NAS claims about Brother Andrew. One day when teaching, shots rang out in the school grounds the gunfire being directed at a British Army Base called Silver City which was situated right beside the school. After the shots I looked out of my window and I saw two young men running at full tilt through the school grounds. It was obvious they had fired the shots but they had no guns. I recognised the two young men as I had often seen them talking to Brother Andrew in the school foyer. This convinced me that Brother Andrew was connected with the IRA so I decided to raise the matter with the school principal Brother Cornelius. I did so and made clear that I believed that Brother Andrew was connected with the Provisional IRA, was abusing his trust as a teacher in the school and if he was he should be sacked as a teacher and dismissed from the order. Brother Cornelius laughed at this and said I was imagining things about Brother Andrew. This was the first time I had my mental faculties questioned and was at a loss how to reply. So the matter was dropped. I knew I could take the matter no further.

A further union matter in the school brought me further into contention with the Brothers. A new development had been introduced in the schools in N Ireland called posts of responsibility. These positions were of keen interest to the staff as they carried with them a significant increase in salary. In La Salle the allocation of these posts was in the hands of the Brothers. The allocation of the posts was top secret and there was widespread discontent among the union members because it was felt the Brothers were using the posts as patronage and the Brothers were getting the lions share. The union members urged me to do something about this. I visited the principal and told him there was widespread discontent in the union about the way the posts of responsibility were allocated and I asked him to publish the names of post holders on the staff notice board along with an indication as to how the posts were allocated. Brother Cornelius flew into a rage and accused me of questioning his integrity. I said I wasn’t questioning anyone’s integrity but was simply asking for clarification of the matter and wished to discuss it but the principal raged on. He said if I thought because I was a senior union member I could question his integrity I was deluded. No union can question my integrity. It is the duty of the union in my school to put its foot on the necks of trouble makers and crush them—on the word crush he shook his clenched fist for emphasis and then shouted at me to get out of his office so I had to retreat.

Next day I was taken aside by Brother Aiden and cautioned. Aiden said—You think because you are the union president you can take on the Brothers. I would point out to you the Brothers have a house in every capital of the world with the exception of Moscow. The Brothers can’t be beaten. You will be made to suffer for taking us on. I said—I wasn’t taking anyone on I was just doing my job. Aiden added—Stop leaning on the Brothers and show respect. and walked away. Aiden was head of history and was heavily into 1916 and the blood sacrifice and was a hard-line southern Republican like all the Brothers. Belonging to the INTO I wasn’t a Republican but a nationalist. The Brothers were union hostile as a rule of the order forbade them from joining a union. The last I saw of Aiden was a picture of him coming out of court after being convicted of child abuse many years later. I assume the Brother Aidan on television was the same Aiden I talked to in La Salle in Andersonstown unless there is another Bro Aidan in La Salle that I’m being confused by. If there is I stand corrected with my apologies. From what he said I knew there were heavy seas ahead of me in La Salle. I was also warned by Sinn Fein. The leader of the Sinn Fein contingent in the school called me aside and advised—Split with Andersonstown. I asked—Why I should do that?—I was told—Split. You’re not welcome."

At this time I was seconded from teaching by the Department of Education to do research in Education leading to an MA in Education. This came as a happy relief as I was under pressure in La Salle and fed up with the place and wanted out of it. I went to the School of Education at Queen’s University and had a happy time there doing research which I enjoyed immensely. I successfully completed an MA in Education by research.

Before leaving for Queen’s University another matter cropped up in the school which involved the union. Brother Andrew was a member of the Provisional IRA but another member of staff was in the Official IRA. A group of Provisional IRA came into the school and beat the Official IRA man up. The Official was a member of the union but he wanted nothing done about the incident as he didn’t want his name in the press. So the matter was passed over. But the pupil body in the school were involved in violence as well. There was a military base right beside the school called Silver City and during lunch break the pupils would leave the school grounds, gather at Silver City and stone it. The British soldiers would come out of the base fire rubber bullets and a riot would ensue. Brother Andrew stood at the school gate looking on. After lunch the pupils would return to class on a high after rioting and were unteachable. The union members were concerned about this and I talked to Jim Purvis of the NAS to see how his members felt. Jim confirmed that his members were also concerned about the violence so we both decided to see the principal about the matter jointly. In the principal’s office we explained the union’s concern about the pupil violence and urged the principal to restrict the pupils to remain within the school grounds and have the pupils supervised by the staff during the lunch break. We assured the principal he would have union backing in doing that. But the principal wouldn’t co-operate. He maintained that he was responsible for pupil behaviour within the school grounds only; what the pupils did outside of the school grounds was the responsibility of the parents. If the unions were concerned about the rioting they should talk to the parents, Cornelius maintained. So nothing was done and the rioting continued. In the staff room Jim said to me—The bastard approves of the violence.—I told Jim he was spot on. All of this deepened my feeling that I was wasting my life in teaching in La Salle and that there was something better I could do with my life than teach but I couldn’t think of just what.

On returning from Queen’s to La Salle I got a nasty shock. I found I had been moved from my classroom in the main school building to a dilapidated hut with broken windows in the school grounds. These huts in the school grounds were known as the punishment block and teachers of whom the Brothers disapproved or were rated as below par as teachers were put there in isolation. In the hut I found a selection of dog-eared maths texts dumped in a corner. I didn’t use texts in the teaching of mathematics but I used apparatus which I had designed for myself. This method of teaching mathematics to pupils of lesser ability in the subject was recommended in the School of Education at Queen’s. I searched the cupboards in my previous classroom but the apparatus had vanished. I enquired around but no-one knew anything about it. Without the apparatus I couldn’t teach as I was accustomed to teach so I knew my teaching days in La Salle were numbered. I went to the principal and asked why I had been moved from the main school building to be told the school had been reorganised in my absence. It was clear to me that I was the only one to be reorganised. As well as that when I examined my teaching time table I found it had been loaded with all the difficult classes in the school. I went to the Northern Office of the INTO, explained my predicament and asked for help but the Northern Secretary didn’t want to know; he had no intention of getting himself and Northern Office involved in a dispute with Brothers of the Catholic Church. So I was thrown to the wolves. I was left with no option but to resign as a teacher in La Salle which I did. To explain why I was thrown to the wolves the bigger union picture must be looked at. While the specific function of the union remained the improvement of pay and conditions of service in the bigger picture the union the policy was to be tough on the government but to be meek mild and gentle with the Catholic Church. I was unhappy with this union stance and I maintained the union should be tough with both the government and the Catholic Church. But the accepted union stance of the time was clericalism and the Northern Office in Belfast was clericalist. The issue under consideration is best understood in a clericalist context. I put forward the policy of being tough on the Church as well as the government because the union members worked in schools under Church management not under state management. I made this position clear to the union members in West Belfast even though there was a strong clericalist wing in the branch.

But the clericalism of the time must be looked at in a still wider picture. The time under consideration was the late 60ties early 70ties and at that time the Catholic Church was all powerful and beyond challenge. Dail Eireann was under the thumb of the clergy and no TD dared say boo to a clerical goose with a round collar. The Irish politicians kept mum about the abuse of women in the Magdalene laundries even though they knew what was going on. I found the Union’s approach to the Church unacceptable even though union policy belonged to the political milieu of the time. But things have changed in present day Ireland. The Church’s power base has collapsed due to scandals; vocations to the ministry have dried up as has vocations to La Salle. The Brothers have left Andersonstown due to a dearth of manpower in the order. The Vatican Council have released the laity from subservience and have made them more assertive (the laity in Ireland isn’t assertive enough) and there is now a greater sense of equality between the lay man and the cleric.

In the La Salle school where I taught clericalism was endemic. The Brothers considered themselves a cut well above the lay staff and considered the school to belong to them alone and the lay staff was some sort of necessary but regrettable appendage in the building. In the school the Brothers ruled the roost and that role in the school couldn’t be criticised or challenged. To gain promotion a lay teacher had to be a conservative Catholic a Republican at least in sympathy and become a Brother’s man and be deferential to the Brother bosses and be in with them. That was the system and I was prepared to buck it.

In the school I eschewed all of that as repugnant and treated the Brothers as equals, spoke to them as equals and was prepared to criticise them openly in the staff room and staff meetings. I adopted a high union profile in the school and wasn’t prepared to become a brother’s man but to act in the interests of the union members even though that was detrimental to my career prospects. I wasn’t prepared to kow-tow to the brothers to gain promotion which a lay man had to do. I saw the Brothers as my equals since my teaching qualifications were better than theirs. All of that didn’t go down well with them and no doubt they saw me as an anti-clerical troublemaker. It was because of all of that that my teaching career in La Salle came to a sudden abrupt end and I was forced out with no support from the clericalist Northern Office in Belfast. I was 42 when I resigned and I knew I had reached a crisis in my life because I no longer wished to teach but to do something different but I didn’t know what.

The summer after resigning as a teacher I was depressed dispirited and demoralised. I didn’t know where to turn or what to do. My days as a student teacher in St Joseph’s College of Education kept coming back to me. I kept thinking of the motto of the college which was—facere et docere—to do and to teach—. The President of the college Dr Rogers took the college motto as his theme often when addressing the student body. He asserted that one should do more in ones life than teach; one should do something of equal value as well. This is similar to the catch-phrase—those who can do: those who can’t teach—. But during the summer in question the issue of what to do with my life pained and perplexed me and I could find no answer to my mental dilemma.

But to compound matters and make things worse in my home I was tormented with nuisance phone calls. The phone would ring at two hourly intervals from morning to night and when I answered the person at the other end would keep the line open but wouldn’t speak for as long as I stayed on the line. At other times the person would laugh down the phone. There was a third ploy. A voice would say—This is a call from Rome will you reverse the charges?—When I refused the voice would say—He won’t reverse the charges—and the line would go dead. I got that sort of call from capital cities from all over Europe and even from South America.

These calls were driving around the bend with annoyance and I felt under stress in my home. I wasn’t sleeping well. One night when I fell into a fitful sleep I had a vivid dream. It was of the Irish tricolour with the red saltire of St Patrick imposed on the white central panel of the flag. I woke up with the flag still vivid in my mind and going to my study I drew a rectangle and divided it into three divisions and put an X in the central division. Intuitively I wrote under the flag—The Royal Flag of Ireland—.

For some time after the dream I pondered the question—If the Cross of St Patrick, the flag of Ireland in the United Kingdom, is imposed on a Republican Tricolour what does that imply for Ireland? Considering this I came to the conclusion that with such a flag as The Royal Flag of Ireland, Ireland is no longer a Republic and while Ireland is still within the Kingdom the Kingdom is no longer united but is federal. Considering this matter still further it came to me that in a Federal arrangement of Ireland within the Kingdom, Ireland is a sovereign nation requiring its own written constitution defined in the National Government of Ireland Act. I now knew that the task that lay ahead of me was to write the Act and that was what I had to do.

I settled to the task in my home and my wife wanted to know what I was doing. To put her in the picture I wrote out an account of the ideas I was using in a Federal Kingdom and I headed the account that I gave her as—Governing with Consent to a Constitution with which the People of Ireland can identify.—My wife read this but dismissed it by saying—You are wasting your time on this. There’s no money in it.—But even there was no money in it I still continued with the task. But not only did the task make no money it ruined my life.

As I wrote the torment of the nuisance calls continued. One Friday the phone rang at two O’ clock pm and I answered it expecting another bogus call but a man answered. He asked to speak to my wife but I said she wasn’t in and I would take a message. The man said he was the executor of my wife’s father’s will and got into a friendly conversation about Tyrone. This went on for some time and suddenly and for no reason this man from Derry said—There are two men who want to talk to you. I said—Who are these men? The man replied—They’re from upstairs. I then asked—Why do they want to talk to me? The man from Derry replied—The men will tell you that. I said—Put the men on the phone—but the reply was—They’re not in at the moment. I asked—When will they be in? and I was told—On Monday. I replied—Give me your phone number and I’ll call you back on Monday." The man gave me his number.

That weekend I felt completely baffled by this peculiar phone call. All I could think of was that these men had something to do with the nuisance calls I had been getting and they were now prepared to talk. On the Monday I called the number I had been given and said—I’m calling about the two men from upstairs you talked about. The man replied—I said nothing about men upstairs.—And hung up. I called back and said—You talked about men upstairs. What was that about? but the man hung up and didn’t reply.

I told my wife about the peculiar phone call and she drove to Derry to talk to this man. On her return she told me the man in Derry said he had said nothing about men upstairs. I said—This man is lying. My wife said—This is a very decent man who wouldn’t lie. I told her in no uncertain terms—This man is lying. This is some kind of dirty trick.

After this without telling me, my wife talked to a psychiatrist called Dr Kerr. I don’t know what she said but whatever it was Dr Kerr told my wife I was clearly a paranoid schizophrenic. I didn’t understand then nor do I understand now how the doctor arrived at this diagnosis for this doctor was a man I have never met, talked to or laid eyes on in my life. I have only a limited understanding of medical matters but I understand before a doctor can diagnose anything he must first examine the patient. Suppose a wife goes to a doctor and says—My husband has a lump on his neck; what do you make of that doctor? Can the doctor say—This is a clear case of cancer". Surely there are medical procedures to be followed before an accurate diagnosis of the lump can be made. But in my experience there are no procedures of any kind in psychiatry and a psychiatrist can say any damned thing that happens to come into his head about anyone even though what he says will ruin the person for life. After talking to Dr Kerr my wife insisted I was in need of psychiatric care and was in need of psychiatric help. I told my wife to arrange a meeting with a psychiatrist because I felt if I talked to a psychiatrist I could clear myself of mental illness. My wife arranged for me to meet a psychiatrist in Windsor House and I went there.

In Windsor House I met a very young lady doctor called Dr Holmes. Dr Holmes wasn’t a psychiatrist but was a trainee GP doing a course of training in Windsor House. The doctor read some questions from a sheet of paper such as—"Are you hearing voices? Do you feel people are putting thoughts into your head? Do you feel people are taking thoughts out of your head? Do you feel you are being followed? On answering no to these questions the doctor then read—Do you feel people are against you? I answered—I don’t feel people are against me but I know the Brothers were against me. Dr Holmes asked me to talk about that which I did and I outlined my union experiences in La Salle. Dr Holmes then read—Are there strange happenings in your life? I told the doctor about the weird phone calls I was receiving and about the extraordinary phone call I got from Derry. Dr Holmes asked—Do you feel these Brothers are making these calls? I replied—They could be but I’ve no way of knowing that. Dr Holmes continued—Do you feel the calls are coming from Queen’s? I said—I would doubt that very much. The Doctor then added—Maybe a pupil is making the calls. I told her—I was sure the calls were being made by an adult. How do you really feel about the call from Derry—the doctor wanted to know? I told her—I knew the man in Derry was lying but I didn’t know why. I was convinced the phone call was some kind of dirty trick. I do know that after the phone call from Derry the nuisance calls stopped—.

The doctor then tore up the sheet of paper she had read from and disposed of it. She asked me my religion and I told her I was a Christian. I asked her, her religion and she replied she was a nominal Methodist. She then said—You look tired. What are you doing? I said—I was writing the National Government of Ireland Act. The doctor exclaimed—Good gracious! You’re writing an Act of Parliament! Tell me about that. I talked to the doctor about the Act in the same vein as I had written about the Act for my wife. I said that as I saw it the Kingdom shouldn’t be defined as united but as federal. If the kingdom is defined as federal then there should be a government in Dublin within the Kingdom equal to Westminster. The Union Jack would be the national flag of Great Britain and a symbol of the federal Kingdom. A redesign of the tricolour called the Royal Flag of Ireland would be the national flag of Ireland and a symbol of the federal Kingdom in Ireland. God Save the Queen would be the national anthem for Great Britain and A Nation Once Again would be the national anthem for Ireland. The Queen would be Head of State in Great Britain and also in all Ireland. When I said that Dr Holmes asked—What would the Dublin government think of that? I answered that I couldn’t care tuppence what the Dublin government thought of it. The Doctor concluded like this—"I have to tell you are mentally ill. I have to tell you, you must come into Windsor House where you will be treated with wonder drugs. My personal opinion is that whatever has gone on between you and these Brothers has caused a subconscious upheaval in your mind. I asked—Is a subconscious upheaval a mental illness?—But the doctor stayed silent.

I spent a week sitting around in Windsor House feeling bored. I thought over my chat with Dr Holmes and I reckoned the chat was a mere formality and the decision to admit me to Windsor House was taken before I talked to the doctor. Eventually I was given an injection and sent home.

At home my wife told me she had talked to another doctor called Dr Mc Ewen and he also told her that I was a schizophrenic and advised my wife that because of my condition, in the home she shouldn’t talk to me, to walk away if I approached her and to ignore everything I said. My wife took the doctor’s advice and that put an end to the marriage. But like Dr Kerr Dr Mc Ewen was a man I never met or talked to in my life. My wife also told me she had seen Gerry Quigley at the INTO Northern Office and told him I was a schizophrenic. My wife and Gerry Quigley had me pensioned out of teaching as an invalid. The pension was modest but sufficient to get by on as my wife was also working as a teacher. I was relieved to find that in my home the nuisance calls had definitely stopped. After being at home my limbs began to tremble and I dribbled from the mouth so that my shirt front would become sodden with saliva. My sister who worked as a Senior Nursing Officer in Altnagalvin hospital in Derry came to visit and when she saw the state I was in she became alarmed as she thought I had Parkinson’s. I told her my condition was caused by an injection I had been given in Windsor House. My sister went to Windsor and told them not to give me any more injections. Eventually the effects of the injection wore off and I returned to normal. When it did I returned once more to work on the Act now free of phone calls and still feeling that writing the Act was the task I had to do.

Shortly after resuming this work one morning I came into the living room to find the family doctor sitting there with my wife. The doctor said—I want you to come with me to Windsor House.—I said—Why should I do that?—The doctor informed me—You’re mentally ill.—I asked further—How do you know that? The doctor went on—Your wife says so I replied—Pay no attention to my wife. I’m not mentally ill. I had one bad injection in Windsor House and I don’t want another. I asked the doctor to leave which he did. I told my wife in no uncertain terms she had no right to tell the doctor I was Ill. My wife told me she had every right because doctors had told her that the Act I was writing was a mental Illness because a teacher writing an Act of Parliament is bizarre schizophrenic behaviour and if I worked on the Act she would sign me back into the clinic. I told my wife the doctors were talking a load of bollocks and I would write the Act because I felt like doing that and there was nothing bizarre about it. My wife shouted at me—Do something with money in it—That’s what husbands do.—Writing an Act of Parliament will get us nowhere—". That was now the dilemma I was in, in my home with my wife. She wanted money and I wanted to write the Act but my wife couldn’t see past her nose as she had a pound sign in each eye that blurred her vision. Some time later four RUC men arrived with me armed with submachine guns and I was brought under RUC escort to Windsor House so my wife had ultimate control over me through state doctors.

In Windsor House I had a conversation with a psychiatrist called Professor Fenton which went like this:—

The Professor then opened his office door and two nurses walked in, took hold of me by each arm and walked me to an ambulance parked out side with its doors open and its engine running. I asked where I was being taken and was told I was being sectioned in Rathlin. I asked why but the nurse didn’t reply. In the ambulance on the way to Rathlin I again asked why I was being sectioned and was told—For your political ideas.—I was at a loss to know what it was I had said to the Professor that made him section me but it was clear to me the decision to section me was taken before I spoke to the professor and the conversation with him was a mere formality just as the conversation with Dr Holmes had been.

IN Rathlin my clothes and shoes were taken away and I had to walk on my bare feet wearing pyjamas. I protested about this to the nurse in charge; the nurse told me I had to dress like that to impress on me that I was very sick with political ideas. I asked—What makes you think I’m sick? I don’t feel sick. Tell me what my political ideas are—But the nurse walked away. Every time this nurse met me he would call out—Wise up Michael. These crackpot political ideas of yours will never get off the ground.—I felt like putting my fist in this nurse but I knew if I did that I would really be in the soup with psychiatrists. I was at a loss to know how this nurse knew my ideas were crackpot because I had never discussed my ideas with him.

The psychiatrist in charge of Rathlin was Dr Lyons. I had one brief conversation with him in which he made clear to me I was a schizophrenic:—