Letter from Ireland

Extract

WRITING A LETTER FROM IRELAND TOUCHES ON CERTAIN sensitivities because Ireland is a geographic unit in search of political expression. There has always been some doubt about political ownership. Between 1800 and 1921 it was, of course, part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Let us say for the present that Ireland now belongs to that small group of political entities - like Korea and Cyprus - which ‘enjoys’ the condition of partition. And that part of Ireland whence this letter is written, Northern Ireland, has been placed in some sort of historical context by a former leader of the Nationalist Party, Eddie McAteer, when he said of it: ‘and now we are sadly the last imperial aspidistra in the British window.’