I

Perhaps your correspondent was just awaiting a piece of good news in order to pick up his poison pen once again.

The English State, once capable of sustained judicial conspiracies against Irish people, has proven that it cannot now even get a showtrial right, and has had to dissolve its case against Mo Chara. Perhaps the case was dropped so as to spare the English media and political class from having to learn how to pronounce Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh—or for that matter Mo Chara: the English Guardian took Mo to be his first name (Morris Chara, Mohammed Chara?), and referred to him as Chara, taking it for his surname; nothing proves the astonishing parochialism of the English elites as much as their struggle to comprehend the basics of Irishness. But we already knew as much.

Admittedly, there was another little piece of news that sparked Macdara’s return to his escritoire, and this too may count as good news inasmuch as it is high-larious and confirms this writer’s own worldview as correct. For the present writer has found out that the Irish Times employs someone whose job title is Ireland and Britain Editor! Even more, this entity is in charge of the important Common Ground initiative, with its logo of Ireland and the island to its east, and the legend Evolving Islands: Ireland & Britain. And what does this Significant Intervention aim to accomplish? We are told that

This new project will focus on the inter-connectedness between North and South, between Britain and Ireland, but also between the constituent parts of the UK and within Northern Ireland itself.

Macdara is certain that he could quote the whole lamentable article but thankfully it is pay-walled. He has however been able to find a few other snippets of West Britism, ranging from the pretentious to the gnomic and vaguely threatening:

Common Ground is a new initiative by The Irish Times that will seek to elevate debate around the future of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Britain and Ireland will change. It’s time to get ready.

II

This paper—which styles itself as the Paper of Record in Ireland—cannot even hire someone to focus on Ireland without forcing in a consideration of Englishness; they cannot conceive of including Occupied Ireland in the purview of the editor for Ireland, without also dragging in the other Celtic Colonies and the Metropole itself. So the person who reports on Roscommon or Armagh is the same person who nominally reports on Scunthorpe or Shetland. This is insanity in itself, but a quick glance at the Common Ground page confirms that the paper is not publishing reportage on Wales or Scotland; this whole initiative is just intended to allow them to write more about Westminster. So this person writes about local events in Ballydehob and Ballycastle, and about Starmer’s cabinet reshuffles. This insanity is clearly the product not only of a Partitionist mindset, but of a Committee of people so afflicted, wherein the very worst idea was allowed to gain purchase, by that peculiar rule whereby the worst idea must always be the one to win out.

Can one imagine a newspaper in Haiti having a Haiti and France Editor? The British and Irish Times is all but begging to be allowed back into the Forever United Constant Kingdom. In fact there are almost no respects in which the polities of Ireland and the neighbouring conglomeration are comparable: in assessing the appropriate delivery of services for a population of 7 million, the State should look to similar sized entities such as Denmark, Scotland, Austria, Czechia, Portugal, even the settler colonial adventure that is New Zealand. But the Irish elites look only to England and the US, an even less appropriate comparator. This is just one reason for their gratitude for the continuing Occupation: they can talk about, worry about, write about England, and claim that they are doing so because it is important to our Country, and not because they are slavish and unimaginative cowards. It remains to be seen what will become of these people in the New Republic that we must expect and work towards. It may become clear then who is being paid for their extreme—and extremely strange—attachment to the corpse of the Empire upon which the sun long ago set. Shine on us once more, they call. Let’s stop these changes! Don’t leave us to ourselves!