Maybe it can be said that the unionist cause is getting weaker and weaker

That is one inevitable consequence of the UK voting to leave the EU.

I come from County Fermanagh, one of the Six Counties in Northern Ireland. Not only is my country divided, but my historic parish of Kinawley is also arbitrarily and arrogantly divided by that damn Border— part is in the Six Counties and part in the Irish Republic.

While the UK was in the EU, and with the coming of the peace-process, I had the joy of driving seamlessly home each summer from Dublin to the parish of Kinawley, and not seeing one British custom post or one British Army manned border fortress. Now I dread not being able to ignore that damn British border again.

I know full well there has been a measure of denial in all of this: I knew, of course, the damn border still existed, but one’s eyes — not to mention one’s blood pressure — did not have to be grossly affected by it. A bit like having something ugly in one’s home that cannot be got rid of for the time being so one hides it from sight.

Although I have strongly supported the Irish peace–process and the Good Friday Agreement, I always had the worry — based on Perfidious Albion’s record — “What if some future British Government comes along, and, as always, does something in its own interest without a thought for the ground it is occupying in Ireland.”

However — without trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear — one can gain some comfort with the thought that since Northern Ireland itself voted to Remain in the EU, this now means that the vast majority of the people in Ireland, North and South, side with the EU rather than with England.

And Scotland overwhelmingly voted to Remain in the EU. Maybe, therefore, it can be said that the unionist cause is getting weaker and weaker.

Father Sean McManus, President, Irish National Caucus, Washington DC