‘Will it be back to old days of border checks and customs posts?’
THE impact of the Leave vote was sinking in on both sides of the border yesterday, but most people were in little doubt that its impact would be felt strongly, and probably not in a good way.
In Dundalk, Co. Louth, Annemarie Murtagh, who had her daughter Siún with her, said: ‘I was really shocked by the outcome. I didn’t think they would vote to leave the EU and I am beginning to think of what the consequences will be.’
On the possibility of border checkpoints coming back, she said: ‘That would be a real setback for people and for the country in general. It would be hard to envisage that again.’
Recalling the days when there were checkpoints, she continued: ‘As a child you would get the sense of fear with soldiers and armed soldiers (at checkpoints) and it is only now in the last years that you are more relaxed going across the border. It is hard to imagine and hopefully it wont happen.’
Boyfriend and girlfriend Jon Crosby and Laura McCabe, from Dundalk, are preparing to leave Ireland and move to Thailand.
Ms McCabe said: ‘I think it was a very stupid decision that they all made and they are going to regret it.
‘I am in a position that I can leave and watch the chaos unfold from Thailand to see how it all goes. My mam works in Daisy Hill Hospital (in Newry), so it is going to be very difficult for her, and my brother is in university in Coleraine.’
Mr Crosby said: ‘I was hoping it would happen just (so they could) see the mistake they made and live with it ’cause they are idiots to go along with it in the first place.’
Meanwhile, Ricky Nolan, from the same area, said he thinks it ‘will make a massive difference to people living in the UK and outside it’.
He said: ‘I have a lot of cousins living in England and the first thing they did this morning was apply for their Irish passports. I think they want to move to Ireland, nearly.’
He continued: ‘It will make a big difference to people living near the border as well. They will have big challenges getting up to the North and getting down to the South. People working in the North – their jobs are on the line, nearly.’
Rosemarie Lynch, also from Dundalk, said she is a ‘bit worried about how it will affect us’. ‘Will it be back to the old days of border control and customs posts and all of that?’ she added. ‘I hope not.’
A short stop across the border in Newry, the views were somewhat more mixed, with some Leave voters standing over their decision. But again, there was little doubt that there would be consequences following the shock decision.
Leona Watt, who backed a Brexit, said: ‘I voted Out because I think we are giving an awful lot of money away and putting an awful lot of money into Europe and not seeing the benefits of it – so for me it is a good thing. I think people are apprehensive as to what is going to happen now but we will just have to wait and see.’
She added: ‘I think being able to make your own decisions as a country, going forward, takes it out of Europe’s hands… I think having the ability to do that is going to be huge.’
Anton Fields, from Armagh, was far less bullish, however.
He said: ‘It is idiotic to leave Europe, to leave the security of the EU. The fact now that you need a visa to travel anywhere abroad now is ridiculous. I think it is a huge mistake and we will be feeling the ramifications of it probably for the next generation of people coming into the country as well.’
Meanwhile, Olanda Houston revealed that she ‘couldn’t decide which way I wanted to go with the vote’.
‘We are leaving and I don’t know what to think about it at all,’ she added. ‘Where do we go? It is more the uncertainly of what is about to happen really.’
Bernice Larkin said she voted to stay in the EU, adding: ‘It has gone the other way and it is not going to benefit our government at all. As you can see, David Cameron has already stepped down, the sterling has already reduced in price.’
And Sinéad Kernaghan said that the situation is ‘unfair, because Northern Ireland is a lot smaller than England and we all want to stay’.
‘We got outvoted by a bigger country,’ she added.
‘It’s idiotic to leave Europe’