Once more unto the breach my friends, once more. Another new year has dawned and there’s a grand stretch in the evenings. Well, not quite. But time passes and even now we can contemplate the shape of things to come in 2018.

The centenary of the end of the Great War will be marked in November. No doubt, there will be sombre ceremonies and reflections. There will also be rather lighter evocations of the joy and relief that attended the moment when an armistice was agreed. One suspects that with Brexit happening in March 2019, the British will make a very big deal of VE Day 2018.

Many, surely, will point out that warfare to match anything from 1914-18 still blights the world. Indeed, the level of irresponsible warmongering by nuclear-armed states is such that we could easily slip into another such cataclysm, though now, it would prove incomparably more destructive. The intervening century has done little to alleviate the role of stupidity and testosterone.

On this island, much will be made of the centenary of the British general election of 1918, in which Sinn Fein candidates swept the board across Ireland except in the north east, where Unionist candidates were victorious. It was a fundamental turning point.

The original Sinn Fein was a general nationalist movement and splintered over the Treaty negotiations that followed some years later. No doubt, modern Sinn Fein, under its new “southern” female leader, will associate itself with the 1918 landslide – after all, the army council of the IRA (still) maintains that it is the lineal successor to the First Dáil, which was established after the election. You can expect furious, and often jesuitical, arguments to unfold.

You may find less mention of the Enniskillen bombing of 1987 when the IRA killed eleven people attending a Remembrance Day ceremony at the town’s cenotaph and wounded over 60. Clearly, we remember some things better than others.
EUROPE ON THE BRINK

Herein lies the rub. If we forget history and its lessons we are likely to repeat the mistakes of the past. And yet, many in Europe seem determined to abandon what their forebears learned and achieved. As 2018 unfolds, we will see just how completely.

The European Union represents an utterly extraordinary achievement, on the part of those who vowed that Europe would never again succumb to the demons of war. Yet, the British have voted to leave. And many countries in Europe have betrayed signs of turning back towards nationalism, totalitarianism and fascism.

It is important for us to remember: the EU was, and remains, a project of peace and growth, based on interdependence. This isn’t an alternative to independence: it’s a broad, complementary framework to it, promoting co-existence, collaboration and mutually beneficial exchange. And it’s not just about markets, goods and services. It’s also about partnership and mutual appreciation, as any Erasmus student can tell you. Yet, much of this coming year will be devoted to the battle over Brexit terms. What a criminal waste.

The Good Friday agreement represents a fine example both of what the EU was established to do and of the ability of the Irish to (eventually) find a modus vivendi that allows people to pursue their lives with some sense of stability and hope. It was no mean achievement and hopefully 2018 will finally see a resolution of the impasse that has hamstrung Northern Ireland, and sidelined the Executive there, for the last year.

THE ABORTION DEBATE

But as soon as we have the rock rolled to the top of the hill it rolls back down on us. It’s an endless and merciless loop and so, here we go again with abortion: back to the future, you might say. Another referendum looms, probably in the first half of the year.

The good thing is that we will finally have a chance to undo one of the worst decisions made by the Irish electorate since the foundation of the State (and that’s saying something). The bad thing is that between now and the vote things will get very ugly, very vicious.

For many reasons Micheal Martin’s decisiveness in supporting the legalisation of abortion on request is welcome. It is also politically astute. If Fianna Fail wants to have a future in urban areas it must adapt to the realities. Of course there will be opposing viewpoints. That’s life. But is it too much to hope that the debate be conducted civilly?

Civil or not, almost certainly there will be interference, quite possibly on a large scale, especially through social media channels. This is more likely to favour the right than the left. Why? The main thing is that the truth means nothing to them: they will lie and distort and misrepresent, without the slightest compunction. They are – or many of them are – utterly unscrupulous.

Already a large number of media personalities and journalists have reported surprising numbers of new followers and it seems highly likely that this is to do with the coming referendum and local elections…

THE POPE AND PRINCE HARRY

As if a referendum on abortion and the recent interest in the Kerry Garda case (aka the Kerry Babies case) weren’t enough reminders of another era, the Bishop of Rome, aka Pope Francis, will also call.

Well, he’s the head of the Roman Catholic Church, so there’s no reason why not. Indeed, Jeffrey Donaldson of the DUP has said that there would be no problem with him visiting Northern Ireland for this very reason. And right there you have a marker of progress, notwithstanding the echoes of times past.

Francis has many admirers for his focus on social justice. As a result he also has many detractors among his own flock. In Ireland these may well include members of the hierarchy, which does not speak with one voice.

It’d be great if Francis’s visit kickstarted the separation of church and state. Free the schools! And we’d all be delighted to hear that the religious orders were going to pay up all they owe to the child abuse redress scheme, wouldn’t we? Well, that’s something the Pope can usefully announce.

Finally, we began with a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry V. That speech by King Henry ends with Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’ Well, Britain’s Prince Harry is to marry in May, so you can expect a generalised hysteria, even here. But with Brexit looming it will be used in the UK to unfurl the banners and ring the bells. One suspects that Trump’s missus is gagging to attend!

The Romans kept the masses happy with bread and circuses: panem et circenses. Well, there’s another thing that hasn’t changed.