Letter: Has Northern Ireland not been ‘a place apart’ since its first conception?

By Letters

Published 1st Mar 2024, 00:00 BST

For those of us willing to embrace it, Owen Polley assures us that our British status provides "a sense of historical, political and social belonging".

He conveyed this to us in this week’s column (‘Unionists should tell a positive story about the UK but be wary’, February 26)

But this is after telling us that Jim Allister is nearer right in suggesting that, post-Brexit, it is "almost meaningless to claim that we are still a full part of the UK"; that in dealings with our neighbours we have been treated as a "third country".

Polley fears our status is being "diluted and fudged". But has it not always been thus?

Was not Northern Ireland from first conception a place apart, somewhere (with its own wee ‘parliament’ and ‘governor’) from which no Westminster party need presume a mandate to govern?

Manfred McDowell, Belfast BT17