Over My Dead Body

Write a story in which the same line recurs three times.

Over My Dead Body: The Rule of Three

Boris Johnson has reiterated his promise that businesses in NI will enjoy unfettered access to GB after Brexit, declaring that “there will be no border down the Irish Sea – over my dead body”. (13.08.20)

Tayto Crisps are one of the most popular and well know snacks in the North of Ireland—even Liam Neeson and Rory McIlroy are fans. You could almost say Tayto enjoys a regal status because the factory in which they were made was actually a castle. You can even get a tour of the castle and you will be greeted at the door by a person dressed up as Mr Tayto. There is even a locked room where the secret recipe for the crisps is kept. 

Boris was in good humour the day that he assured the NI business leaders that over his dead body would you ever see a border down the Irish Sea. In November 2019, he visited the Tayto factory in Tandragee and assured them the the idea that there would be checks on Tayto crisps from Tandragee coming to the UK was simply inconceivable. He assured them that Tayto crisps from Tandragee were one of his favourite snacks. 

So Boris reassured the gathering that a border down the Irish Sea would not be an option. But he also said that there would be no hard border on the island of Ireland.

So the British PM faced a Catch 22 situation—because Northern Ireland was still in the EU’s single market for goods, there would have to be some kind of border checks because the UK was no longer in the EU so technically the Tayto crisps would be subject to the EU’s customs and regulations on agri-foods. 

No matter what Boris, there was no way he could appease both sides-the bottom line was that there could not be a return to a hard border with with cameras and custom posts. But the Unionists would not countenance a border down the Irish Sea. They were adamant that as they were a part of the UK—it was a conundrum. 

Meanwhile Mr Tayto was blissfully unaware of the potential trouble the Protocol would cause—he just greeted visitors in his usual friendly way. Mr Tayto guarded the locked room where the secret recipe was hidden as he believed that crisps were above politics. Agreements, protocols, treaties come and go but Mr Tayto’s crisps would continue to be produced. And he was proud of the fact that the factory produces one million packets of crisps and snacks every day. 

In October 2018, the DUP leader said:

There cannot be a border down the Irish Sea, a differential between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. The red line is blood red—all along we have said: “No new regulatory alignment.” 

In October 2019 DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said:

Stick to your word (Boris Johnson) – we will not accept a customs border in the Irish Sea.

The crisp war was followed by the ‘sausage’ war when it emerged that the EU were insisting that sausages and chilled meats coming into an EU country would be subject to border checks. Boris saw this as a purist approach; he had taken a gamble that there would be some flexibility around goods being shipped from the mainland to Northern Ireland. But the EU insisted that checks be put in place. So Boris was caught on the horns of a dilemma, between a rock and a hard place, between Scylla and Charybdis, and like Odysseus he just wanted to navigate the dangerous straits in order to deliver Brexit. Odysseus just wanted to get home and to do this he had to sacrifice six men. Boris was between the devil and the deep blue sea and that sea was the Irish Sea and that’s where the border was going to be. 

And when it emerged that there was not going to be a land border but a border down the Irish Sea, the DUP were furious and felt that they had been betrayed. In Loyalist areas, signs and graffiti appeared on the walls declaring that there must not be a border down the Irish Sea and demanding that the Protocol be scrapped. Sporadic violence erupted and this threatened the peace process. One of the most serious protests was at one of the Peace Walls in Lanark Way and the gates were breached. It is one of the most volatile interfaces in Belfast and the barrier separates the Loyalist Shankill Road and the Republican Falls and Springfield Roads. The Loyalists cannot accept that they are being treated differently from the rest of the UK and cannot believe that goods coming into Northern Ireland from the UK are being subject to border checks. 

In his poem ‘Epic’ Patrick Kavanagh writes about the Duffeys and McCabe’s row over a ‘half a rood of rock’. 

 Epic

  I have lived in important places, times

  When great events were decided, who owned

  That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land

  Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

  I heard the Duffeys shouting "Damn your soul"

  And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen

  Step the plot defying blue cast-steel —

  "Here is the march along these iron stones".

  That was the year of the Munich bother. Which

  Was more important? I inclined

  To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin

  Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.

  He said: I made the Iliad from such

  A local row. Gods make their own importance.

And Robert Frost wrote in his famous poem, ‘Mending Wall’

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

In this poem Frost questions the saying that, ‘good fences make good neighbours’. 

Ultimately, the challenge is to keep the Good Friday Agreement intact, and a land border would undermine that. However, the alternative option of going for a sea border has caused outrage and unrest in the Loyalist community.