Chris

I don’t know if you’ve been to Northern Ireland recently, but you don’t have to spend much time there to realise that Varadkar is right (even a broken clock is right twice a day). Stormont as a devolved assembly within RoI is no more strange an idea as its present status within the UK. And despite the British identity of the (narrow) majority of its inhabitants, stepping into Northern Ireland is not the same experience as hopping between any of the other home nations. It is already a very different entity, and exuberant expressions of Britishness by the unionist population really only serve to underline the fact.

Partition was a pragmatic solution to a real problem, but it was a solution driven by the mindset of its time. Nobody would come up with such a solution today. Ireland is Ireland, and the different identities of its people are best given space within Ireland.