Northern Ireland was an overtly sectarian state where the entire apparatus of government was controlled by one faction, making it impossible to describe as a properly functioning democracy.

17:55are. Now against this background, the people who run Northern Ireland, the Unionists, have absolutely no intention of loosening their grip. And the first prime minister of Northern Ireland was called Sir James Craig. If you Google him, he really does look like a boiled egg and someone has painted a face on him. >> Does he have a massive mustache? >> He does have a mustache. Yeah, >> of course he does. I mean, with a name

18:18like Sir James Craig, you couldn't not. He undoubtedly has a mustache. Yeah. No question. So, uh, he was very explicit about this. He gave a speech in the 1930s. He said, "I'm not going to do the accent because my Northern Irish accent is not as good as yours." He said, "In the South, they boast of being a Catholic state. All I boast of is that we are a Protestant parliament and a

18:37Protestant state." That's good, double A. Thank you. Um, it's understated though, isn't it's and it's a bit wobbly. He's not wrong. They are a Protestant state. The judges, the magistrates, the civil servants are almost entirely Protestant. The Royal Olter Constabularary, the RU, the police who are going to play a massive part in this story. They're about 9 to1 Protestant. And the RU has an armed kind of paramilitary reserve called the B

19:04specials that people sign up for. And these are exclusively Protestant really. They are the sort of the bullwick, the enforcers of unionist supremacy. when things kick off in the streets, you call for the B specials and they come out of their orange order lodges with their guns and they are the people who will basically restore order. So in the in the 70s and 80s, the comparison was

19:28often made between Northern Ireland and South Africa. >> Yeah. >> By uh nationalists and Republicans. But I mean there's kind of an element of truth there, isn't there? To a degree >> it's a very inflammatory comparison. I mean, if the entire apparatus of the state is controlled by one >> faction, then it's not I mean, there's no way you could describe it as a a properly functioning democracy.

19:53>> No. No, you absolutely couldn't. We'll come on to this. You absolutely couldn't. >> And it's overtly sectarian, if not I mean, it's not it's not racist, but it's sectarian. >> It's not racist. It is a sectarian state. Exactly. And so James Craig or somebody like that would say, I mean, he may might quibble with the word sectarian, but he would say, you know, we're a Protestant state. End of story.

20:11If you don't like it, go somewhere else. This is how we're going to run things. You know, we know what we're doing. Pipe down. He would absolutely say that. And and critics would say, well, that's what the um Africanas or whatever say in South Africa. Some people in Northern Ireland would be offended by that. Some people would lean into that comparison and say, well, we kind of are like the

20:31birds. We are um hardy frontiersmen. We've carved out a state in the face of overwhelming odds. You know, we've we've built something really precious and special and we want to defend it. And don't you tell us what to do. >> I don't want to plunge into this cuz it's murky waters, but on the the Shank Hill and Falls Road murals, the Shank Hill is full of the Israeli flag and the