Introduction of the National Health Service to Northern Ireland

"The formation of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) was the first free healthcare system in the world. It recognised that health care was not a luxury or an item and importantly health was to be a public service. For my father’s generation the NHS transformed lives and made them feel that the state had obligations to them as much as they had obligations to the state. My father often talks of the queues that stretched down the street when free health care came to Northern Ireland. The idea that health was free removed a great deal of fear and despair among the poor and marginalised. It was particularly important for parents who had sick children. The subsequent Butler Act that provided free access to university was for my generation another important transformation as it provided the resources that working class people needed to attend university. This was a golden age and despite cutbacks and changes to funding systems this remains a golden era of societal reform. Many people think of those who wish to maintain the constitutional link as being driven by their religious identity or their devotion to monarchy when in fact for some Britishness is defined by the existence of the NHS and a history of labour struggles for decent and fair living standards. That the Republic of Ireland never created a national health service is important to them and their constitutional allegiance. The NHS is not a flag or an imagined construct of identity nor was it framed by violence. It is real and tangible and still supports and transforms lives. It is the greatest contribution to identity and security ever imagined by any society. "