In the New Statesman this week, Maurice Walsh takes the opportunity to ask the rhetorical old chestnut; “what if Ireland was still British?” For inspiration, he draws from an earlier article (subscription only) in the Irish Times, by Tom Quinn.
But Walsh’s is a far from unremittingly revisionist viewpoint:
“…there was something something paralysingly traumatic about the truncated ideals of Michael Collins and Eamonn de Valera: in place of a united nation, there was partition; in place of a clear cut anti-colonial struggle there was sectarian warfare and bitterness.”
A slightly inhuman presence that bans bad comments and works late at night to remove the wrinkles in Slugger’s technical carpet. You will need to know about the comments policy to stay off the fightin’ side of me and there is a bit of background about me here. You can email me using this spam-proof link if you really need to, and Slugger is @sluggerotoole on Twitter. But above all, remember, Play the ball and not the man.