Blood will be on Tory hands if war returns

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

I’m so sorry; I apologise to those people in Ireland who believe that the English feel increasingly hostile towards your country.

Nobody set out to damage the Irish. Generally, few English people ever spare Ireland a moment’s thought.

I understand why, as I was one of them.

Ever interested and politically motivated, I knew absolutely zip about Ireland until I moved here. I’d travelled around the planet twice before ever stepping foot in the county next door.

When I finally did, it very much felt like I was going to Ireland because I’d run out of other countries. If that sounds insulting, even contemptuous, that’s my point.

As a Londoner, I neither disliked the Irish nor Ireland.

I’d no idea I was saving the best ’til last.

A student of history at both ‘O’ and ‘A Level’, my English education taught me one Irish date: 1846, and one name: Raleigh, who I read about in a Ladybird book at the age of seven.

The English don’t hate the Irish.

They just don’t care.

Like you and me, the English are constantly bombarded with political lies and let-downs, so when told “Oh, Ireland, yes, well it’s all very complicated you see!” they are happy to shrug their exhausted shoulders.

The same psychological tactic of telling the public it’s all too difficult for them to understand is proving an effective device in the whole Brexit process.

Worn down by boredom, the British are more than happy to relinquish interest. They just want it over and done with.

Your Irish emotions might calm if you appreciate the depth of whimsy and bluff that’s driven Brexit since its inception. There was never a plan to destroy the peace process. Nobody was thinking about Ireland at all. There was just a vain Tory Prime Minister who needed to leave a greater legacy than being the bloke who screwed a pig’s head and left his daughter in the pub.

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.