Open Borders

Quoile Castle informational board, mentioning Captain Richard West as its likely builder. 

Travelling north from Dublin, it does not take too long to reach the extraordinary neolithic monument of Newgrange, testament to the skills and knowledge of the ancient Irish. From Newgrange, it is only short drive to the site of the Battle of the Boyne, the memory of which seems to be indelibly printed in the memory of all the Irish. Heading further north, crossing the border into the north is currently a seamless process, visible immediately only through the fact that roadsigns become English only, and that kilometres have been replaced by miles. 

But then you start to notice the flags, fluttering above the housetops, the Union Jack included, and you are reminded that still to this day the Orangemen cross annually to the south to celebrate their victory at the Boyne, on that seminal day when Hadzors and Wests briefly faced each other across the lines.

History runs deep in this part of the world. The Northern Irish, at a guess, are probably the fiercest of British patriots, determined to maintain their historical rights, and roots, and not be absorbed into any kind of Gaelic speaking, Catholic and Celtic counter-culture. 

What both sides of the island shared however until recently at least was membership of the European Union and an open border arrangement that  brought the communities of the island together. For the Irish, common membership of an impersonal and supranational, secular body with no historical stake or prejudice on the island seems to have provided a secure umbrella under which to develop the country as a whole. 

The prospect of a new hard border between North and South following a Brexit vote in which the Northern Irish asserted conclusively that they would like to stay in the European Union now occupies a central place in the discussion agenda

Being Ireland, the outcomes are unpredictable – but perhaps it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the day is not so very far off when the island will be fully reunited once more, and make its own way in the world. This is an outcome that has been made more likely – not less likely - by the Brexit referendum, which as far it proved anything, demonstrated only how English weight of numbers and power have always been the determinant of British policy and official identity. 

Should this day come, it would mark a triumph from beyond the grave for Thomas Russell and the short-lived United Irishman movement whose ideas briefly lit up the Downpatrick discussion circles within which the Wests, Hadzors, Potters, Nevins, Carsons and other Irish cousins of Hetty Jane Owen briefly weighed up their political options, and like so many others moved on and quietly vanished from the scene, leaving behind their lands, their mills, and their tower houses as faint whispers only of their extraordinary lives and times.