Irish Independent

Herbaceous border might solve our thorny problem

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WE SEEM to have reached an impasse as to what kind of Border we’ll have postBrexit. Hard or soft? Who knows?

Well, I’ve discovered a solution to this present woe and it comes from a book written in 1453, by the Irish monk Aloysius the Agitator, called ‘Impractica­l Solutions to Intractabl­e Problems’. Its prescripti­on for situations where “…neither rational agreement, nor compromise­d acquiescen­ce, to a synthetic accordance of both parties to which, in deference to God’s will, might cease rancorous dispute, and discord, is not forthcomin­g, nor is likely to be so forthcomin­g, the felicitous opinion, for the man of God, is to go the way of the ass”.

Therefore, with regards to the question do you want a hard or soft Border, might I suggest Aloysius’ felicitous option of a “herbaceous” one: after all, it’s both hardy and perennial.

It ought to be noted that Aloysius was burned alive at the stake in 1462 for suggesting similar over a disputed boundary of the Pale. Malachi Maguire

Clane, Co Kildare

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