There is another life beyond this relentless Brexit hand-wringing

AM I alone in feeling a tiny bit excited about all this stuff around Brexit?

Before anyone gets a chance to say that I have finally lost my marbles, I wish to assert that, like everyone else, I am mostly petrified about what seems to be coming down the line towards us.

But I am sick to the teeth of the never-ending doomsday predictions and really feel that we are allowing ourselves to be talked into despair.

For example, there’s been speculation that the postBrexit beef price could be lower than the equivalent of the 90p/lb that farmers fought factories for almost 20 years ago. And that is without taking any account of inflation.

Talk about softening farmers up. If someone gets more than this figure, are they supposed to say, ‘ well, at least it wasn’t that bad’?

Seriously? This kind of prediction is not at all helpful. We are not participating in an episode of RTÉ’s madcap travel series from the noughties, ‘How Low Can You Go’.

So unrelenting is the negative coverage that I think people are suffering from what I have termed, the NOBBiES, Nothing On But Brexit Exhaustion Syndrome.

(Unfortunately, there is a serious side to the Nobbies, in that we are all experiencing such burnout from Brexit, that the main thing we want now is for it to be over, so we can just get on with life, in whatever guise that may be.)

So what good can there possibly be to Brexit?

In the first place, there is a sense that we are witnessing history in the making.

Months, even years go by when very little seems to happen in politics; one lot of politicians go in as another come out, with vast amounts of time spent in petty manoeuvring, throwing shapes, without ever really getting stuck into something meaty.

Now, the EU is facing its biggest upheaval since it was created, and there is a sense that we are seeing what politicians really think and feel; that it is naked, bare-knuckle, boxing. Moreover, Ireland is central to the action.

So, while we expect big trouble, we don’t know if it is going to be an earthquake, an avalanche or a tornado. It could even be all three. Or it could be a volcanic eruption.

Until we actually know what’s coming, we, the ordinary people need to pause for a moment and stop panicking.

This may not have that much impact on our daily lives, in the short-term at least.

Yes, it will likely have a substantial impact on trade, and no sector more so than agriculture.

But we also need to remember that, in all adversity, there is also opportunity. If farmers can see a penny (or even a cent!) in anything, they will jump at it.

For example, I was recently gobsmacked to learn that the bulk of the commercial flour used in this part of the island comes from two mills in Belfast … and that the WTO tariff on flour is over 60pc at today’s prices.

Scary or what, but maybe potential there too for our tillage sector.

In this context, maybe consumers will become more aware of where their food comes from; they might even start to appreciate it more once again.

I am also very curious to see what will happen to the agriculture sector in Britain in the wake of Brexit.

Will it, as many British farmers expect, flourish due to strong domestic demand? Or will it flounder without EU support? Or will it go off in a different direction?

What implications will all this have for the EU and for Ireland?

In 1966, American politician Robert F. Kennedy said: “There is a Chinese curse which says, May he live in interesting times. Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.”

WE NEED TO PAUSE AND STOP PANICKING