Of Difference Does It Make

During the 51-year existence of the Northern Ireland Parliament only one Bill sponsored by a non-Unionist member was ever passed.

Among the plovers and the stonechats
protected by the Wild Birds Act
of nineteen-hundred-and-thirty-one,
there is a rare stint called the notawhit
that has a schisty flight-call, like the chough’s.
Notawhit, notawhit, notawhit
- it raps out a sharp code-sign
like a mild and patient prisoner
pecking through granite with a teaspoon.

© Tom Paulin, permissons Faber & Faber Ltd.

Tom Paulin represents the long unmoveability of Unionist politics as a granite wall being slowly eroded.