In January 1972 Bernadette Devlin was fired upon by British paratroopers during the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland. In March of that year she appeared on the BBC with the conservative publisher, writer and intellectual, William F Buckley junior, in a show misnamed The Irish Problem. Devlin was grilled by Buckley for over 30 minutes and then was attacked by a panel of three Tories.
In my view Devlin argued Buckley under the table, so to speak, using the sound argument that the capitalism tolerated democratic rights so long as they did not interfere with their profits. She then dispatched the three conservatives one of whom was openly racist and imperialist.
Ironically the issues raised by Devlin then about Northern Ireland are the very issues that concern Britain today. Lack of affordable housing, unemployment, a denial of democratic rights, and economic crisis caused by corporations taking profits offshore.
I suppose it is not so strange that the British Isles that could produce Charles Dickens and Bernadette Devlin could also crown a monarch, King Charles III. – Ian Curr, 6 May 2023.