An Irish solution to an Irish problem

We really were hoping not to have to return to the topic of our recent Auschwitz post. But there is uproar, especially in Northern Ireland, arising from several remarks from people who should know better, that appear to link the Nazis and the Holocaust with Ulster Unionism. Of course, Slugger O'Toole has a huge set of relevant links; go to this post and the ones near it to get a flavour.

But whereas President Mary McAleese's one-sided equation of Protestant hatred of Catholics with Nazi anti-Semitism is causing the biggest row, we'd like to comment a less remarked aspect of the same radio interview. The President was also asked whether the country should apologise for then Taoiseach Eamon DeValera's notorious protocol visit to the German Embassy to deliver condolences upon the death of Hitler. Writing in Friday's Irish Independent (reg. req'd), Alan Shatter documents the response:

...she doubted whether there is an apology "big enough" that can be given but acknowledged that "we hid behind bureaucracy, we hid behind words and didn't do all the things that could have been done and should have been done and to that extent we all have a fair degree of complicity and for that I think we should hang our heads with a degree of shame for the things that were within our power to do and that weren't done."

Now, judging from the Prince Harry controversy, it seems that everyone has wised up the apology that's not really an apology when it's along the lines of "I apologize if/to whom I offended/gave offence. So Mary has a different version -- the apology for everything that ends up being an apology for nothing. But what would hurt about a specific, purely symbolic, apology for one diplomatic faux pas from 60 years ago? Other countries have gone through much more wrenching self-examinations, and we can't even manage that?

In his op-ed piece in the Independent, Shatter is too polite to say what he really thinks is going on, but the sub-text is clear:

It is my recollection that such an apology on behalf of the State was eloquently and unequivocally given by John Bruton when Taoiseach on the 28th April 1995 at a State organised Commemoration Service for those Irish people who died in the Second World War and for the victims of the Holocaust.
Perhaps, if the President had been aware of this, she would have been more sure-footed in her language.
Perhaps the President felt in the absence of government approval, she could not adequately address this issue.
As this week is the 60th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz it would be of significant historical importance if either the President or Taoiseach would, before it ends, publicly acknowledge and apologise for Eamonn de Valera's morally repugnant error of judgment.

In other words, our supposedly non-partisan President needs a signal from one particular party, not the one that did apologise before, before she can proceed.