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ANTI-BREXIT CAMPAIGNERS along the border have been dealing with a surge of interest in recent weeks as media outlets around the world dispatch crews and reporters to speak to locals on either side of the 500km boundary.
TheJournal.ie spoke to local residents about their fears of a hard border at Dromintee GAA club in South Armagh on Wednesday night, alongside a reporter from a German daily newspaper and a camera crew from Reuters (you can read the full story here).
Damien McGinty, a local organiser for Border Communities Against Brexit, said he’d arranged the event as a way of meeting all the media requests they’d been getting in the wake of Theresa May’s failure to get the EU-UK withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons last month.
Fears of a no-deal exit increased further in recent weeks amid continuing disarray in London, leading to an inevitable rise in interest from news organisations in what’s likely to happen on 29 March, and what it might lead to.
“It’s crazy,” McGinty, who runs a local post office and a small farm, said.
“We had the Chinese last week, we have South Koreans, we have an Australian, we had four UK-based crews, we have an American crew interested. It’s nuts.”
Another organiser had met with reporters from Euronews earlier that day and was due to meet with a Spanish crew the next day. They’d also just finished their contributions to a documentary following the group to Strasbourg to lobby EU politicians, McGinty said.
He’s not complaining, he emphasises – they have a serious message to get out, and it’s important to communicate it, particularly to Europe.
Formed in the wake of the 2016 referendum vote, which saw a majority of voters in the North vote to Remain in the EU, campaigners from the group have lobbied extensively in Belfast, Brussels, Dublin and Westminster in recent years.
They’ve also organised large-scale demonstrations and stunts to emphasise their message – including a protest two weeks ago that saw organisers build a wall and eight foot watchtower, manned by actors in military fatigues.
In Clones, Co Monaghan, another stop on what has now become a ‘Brexit Camino’ for international reporters, local businessman Eamon Fitzpatrick told TheJournal.ie it was essential to get the anti-border message out.
“It’s important to get out what the border means. The average person in London hasn’t a clue what the border means.”
Fitzpatrick, whose fuel and hardware business on the outskirts of Clones is bisected by the border, had also hosted the Chinese media crew in recent weeks.
Sinn Féin councillor for Clones Pat Treanor said locals hoped they were “doing a little good by getting the message out to MEPs in other countries and governments in other countries”.
“It might bring that wee bit of extra pressure on their MEP and educate them on what it would be like if a border came back.”
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Honest question,, in the lead up to the brexit vote a couple of years ago, did any one from the remain side even mention N.Ireland and the danger to the good Friday agreement that leaving the EU could cause?
@Devilsavocado: Honest answer… in the lead up… British Government didnt rely on DUP (spanner in the wheel) as its cornerstone.. Mainland UK citizens in all likelihood would vote to detach themselves of Ulster fly if they could, afterall with no backstop/Good Friday agreement to comtemplate Brexit would already be done and dusted.
@Devilsavocado: Sinn Féin did.
@Devilsavocado: Of course not, the Brexiteers were too busy waving the Union Jack dreaming of the past glories of a withered empire, and the Remainers thought they were going to win anyway because people wouldn’t be that foolish, would they?
N.I. is just a pawn in a huge game of brinkmanship between the UK and the EU, a game which the UK are losing because they haven’t really got a clue exactly want they want, but will be damned if anyone else will tell them what they want.
@Devilsavocado: I followed Brexit from the early days, and I remember saying to people 100s of times that the north is being mentioned. I remember debates on British Tv stations that had representatives from England, Scotland and Wales but not NI. I have respect from the ordinary Unionists up North but how do they not see that the mainland sees them as an inconvenience is beyond me.
@Tom Kelly: the mainland? It’s just another island in the Atlantic.
Does the UUP make any contribution to this debate? I thought they were remain supporters?
No because they didn’t give a sh#t , but as we all know all of a sudden they do, go figure!
Surprised the journal have not picked up the story that uk are planning to dump nuclear waste in the border area in Northern Ireland
@Marcas Ivarrson: They did, 2 days ago. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thejournal.ie/factcheck-nuclear-waste-newry-4478653-Feb2019/%3famp=1
Arlene’s plan is coming together nicely , the DUP never wanted the good Friday agreement ,as it undermines their delusional union as a British people . They managed to partition this island as a minority 100years ago thus making themselves a majority in their own council state province . Brexit is a breach of the Good Friday agreement , so is the DUP in collision with the torries . Throughout history the British have broke every deal brokered with the Irish . Now they are going to do it again. Arlene’s not going to sit in stormount anytime soon .sure why would she ? . She is not even an elected MP but now holds all the cards
it will be a hard border & will be manned on the southern side by the eu army to protect the interests of the eu on the otherside it will be manned by immigration to protect uk / another calais
@Kieran Cronin: the EU which includes Ireland of course.
Whos organising this drama..
@Tomas: don’t know … but it’s not a BBC production. They’re too busy pretending the North of Ireland doesn’t exist.
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