Paddy Cullivan told David Hennessy about his show I Can’t Believe It’s Not Ireland which gets into the ‘nitty gritty’ of how a united Ireland would look and work.
This Thursday and Friday you can join Paddy Cullivan at The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith in envisaging a new Ireland.
In his show I Can’t Believe It’s not Ireland, Paddy takes you into the future but a not too distant or unrealistic one.
It is the story of a united Ireland in 2032 and shows what such a thing could actually look like and how it will actually work.
It is not just a case of stapling six counties onto the southern Ireland that we have.
No, this Ireland has a new flag, a new anthem and even a new capital that is not either Dublin or Belfast.
Paddy Cullivan returns to The Irish Cultural Centre after brining his previous shows The Murder of Michael Collins and The Murder of Wolfe Tone to the venue.
This show is different from your previous shows. While you delved into the past for those, this is delving into the future..
“Yes, but in the first half I explain where we came from and how we got the partition and plantation and all the rest of it.
“But I bring it up to a united Ireland in 2032.
“Then the second half of the show is the amazing country we become and how it changes.
“I use AI imagery to explore that so there is a bit of history in the first half but then the second half is future history if you can imagine.”
The point your show makes is that it is not just a case of Ireland as we know it taking on six new counties but more that it is a whole new country..
“Exactly.
“Everybody remembers the Good Friday Agreement and things like that but these are all deals.
“I have based this on real research by Brendan O’Leary and stuff like that.
“Of course, the funny thing is there’s a lot of southern people who would never want to give up certain things like the anthem or the flag or rejoining the Commonwealth.
“But in fact, these are all things that have to be considered because if you’re going to do a deal with Unionists and people in the North, it’s give and take.
“The byline for my show is that nobody wins unless everybody wins.
“So what I do is I explore if we did have a new flag, what would it be.
“If we did have a new anthem, what would it be and how would rejoining the Commonwealth help us?
“So it’s not a Republican tract, it’s very much, ‘How would you make this feel? And how would you make this brand new country?’
“Also by rejoining the Commonwealth, it keeps an association with the royal family, who, I think, have to be commended.
“Charles, his mother, ahead of most politicians, made that leap to talk to and engage with people who are their mortal enemy.”
And there would be a whole new capital, not Dublin or Belfast..
“You’ll never get everyone to agree on that so effectively, we have to find a brand new capital. I picked Athlone but everyone’s welcome to make their decisions.
“There’s a lot of comedy and fun in it but there’s a lot of serious intent and underlying stuff.
“I think when we talk about a United Ireland, it’s very abstract and what I’ve done is I’ve gone down to the nitty gritty and said, ‘Here’s what it’s going to be like’.
“We have a lot of laughs and great imagery along the way, couple of songs.
“I have written a new national anthem because we can’t even decide in Ireland what anthem we want, because there’s the the old anthem Amhrán na bhFiann and then there’s Ireland’s Call for the rugby team.
“Rather than people having to make a binary decision, I’ve just provided them the third solution.”
You’re right. People talk a lot about a united Ireland but very little about what it actually looks like..
“Exactly.
“I go from the most unserious questions which Tayto do we pick, superior southern Tayto or rotten northern yellow Taytos?
“I go from that to serious which capital do we have and what our health service looks like but also, what are the things in the Irish personality that we need to change in order to move forward as people?
“A lot of the first part of the show is the history of the Protestant people in Ireland. There’s a bit of a cliche that they’re the ones who are always saying no and they’re the ones who are kind of stuck in their ways but, in fact, as I show in history, they are the ones who moved us forward and progressed us a lot of the time.
“I would feel as comfortable doing a show in East Belfast as I would West Belfast.
“It’s a very fair show to both sides of the historical divide.”
As you say in the show the Catholic/ Protestant divide isn’t something that has always existed..
“Yes, this show came out of my The Murder of Wolfe Tone, which I brought around the north.
“I couldn’t believe how many Protestants and Presbyterians were going to this show.
“They gave us 1798, they gave us Wolfe Tone. They gave us all of that and then they don’t become Unionists until 1834 when Daniel O’Connell is threatening them because they feel the Catholics will make sure that Home Rule means Rome Rule.
“And they were correct because that’s what happened in 1922.
“I kind of show that we might not like it but they were kind of right all the way along.
“Economically in 1912 they’re like, ‘We don’t want home rule because Belfast is the most successful city on earth’ which it was whereas the rest of Ireland was lagging way behind.
“My argument now is that the Irish economy is five times stronger than the northern one so we should make a brand new country together and all be successful together.
“It’s not just Sinn Fein (calling for a united Ireland), I was very encouraged that Leo Varadkar has come out and become such a strong proponent of a united Ireland.
“So it’s not just Sinn Fein’s wheelhouse.
“It’s what southern people, I think, have wanted for a long time but I think a lot of Northern people are thinking about it.
“I think what the south needs to be careful of is that we show that we are ready and willing to make this brand new country and we don’t say no just because there’s more of us than there is of them.
“It’s not just going to be six counties lumped into the Republic as it was.
“Certainly a lot of Northern Protestants, one of their main concerns would be they want an NHS style health service so I put that together as well in the show so it goes from very funny to very serious.
“It’s a really optimistic show.
“My other shows are pessimistic.
“They’re exciting, they’re fun but they’re ultimately pessimistic whereas this show is really about optimism over despair and not only to do with Ireland but to do with world events.
“We’re living in a very tough world at the moment and Ireland should be taking a leadership position.
“We’re one of the only places that had a successful peace process so we should be spreading that around the world, not picking sides but showing people how it’s done.
“But I make the connection with Britain stronger again too because there are many great things about the connection with Britain.
“Boris Johnson did have one great idea in his life which is to build the bridge between Ireland and Scotland and I think we should do that.
“We’ll also have a massive high speed rail system that I developed called the Sneachta Piercer which means we can get from one city in Ireland to the next in 15 minutes and it’ll make it a much more amenable place.
“The whole point of the title of the show is that everybody wakes up.
“Many people in Ireland in the south believe that this is what Ireland’s always been.
“It’s 100 years old, that’s it.
“We invented this Ireland as we invented the six counties.
“But people are gonna wake up and go, ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Ireland’.
“And I go, ‘Yeah, just like I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and it’s not butter, but it’s better.
“Everywhere I’ve gone, it’s gotten five star reviews.
“People have laughed a lot but they’ve also come out with this strange feeling of hope in a world gone mad, and that’s what I’m trying to provide.
“I’m trying to make people feel better and look forward to an optimistic future.
“Everybody who’s come to it has absolutely loved it.
“The funniest thing is I did the show in Belfast and people from the Shankhill Road came and they absolutely loved it too so I think everybody is looking for something to hold on to.
“In this crazy world, we need some kind of optimistic, utopian vision and that’s what I’m trying to provide.”
Didn’t you also get run out of Belfast though, about the Taytos?
“They nearly ran me out of town for trying to change their Tayto- And these were nationalists so we may have a harder time convincing the so called northern Republican to give up certain British luxuries that they really adore.”
You have done shows on Michael Collins and Wolfe Tone, what do you think they would think of this vision of a ‘new Ireland’?
“Well, they feature throughout the show because they’re my two heroes.
“I think Colins and Wolfe Tone were pragmatic people.
“Collins himself, having negotiated a treaty, knew you can’t get everything you want but you can certainly get something better than before.
“I think he would understand my proposals because he always made accommodation for the Unionist people.
“He understood that nobody wins unless everybody wins, and both Wolfe Tone and Michael Collins would have seen the logic in that, to not get stuck on symbols or anthems or things like that but to find a great new future for all Irish people everywhere.”
You obviously see a united Ireland as an inevitability and one that could arrive sooner rather than later?
“Keir Starmer has already said Britain’s broke so my feeling is that very soon, that little (red budget) suitcase will not contain anything for the Stormont government.
“That’s when the excrement hits the rotating air dispensal device and once that little red suitcase doesn’t have anything for Northern Ireland, and I think that will be sooner rather than later, that’s when we immediately pretty much have to go for this.
“That’s why I think it’s urgent that we think about it now, we don’t kick it down the road because it’s coming very, very soon.
“If you read certain papers or listened to certain radio stations, you would think it was 1992 in the six counties, and it isn’t.
“Everybody lives among each other, everybody talks to each other.
“There are a few little extremists but to be honest, it is two communities who do intermingle.
“So obviously the conversations are happening.
“I’ve done this show to maybe provide for them a way for them to see a future together.
“I’ve written it in a certain way so no one’s going to be happy: It’s not going to make Republicans happy, it’s not going to make unionists happy but no negotiation ever does and no deal ever does but it gets us further and it gets us living together.”
Paddy Cullivan brings I Can’t Believe It’s Not Ireland to The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith Thursday 31 October and Friday 1 November.
For tickets and to book, click here.
For more information about Paddy Cullivan, click here.
