Postcards from the Edge Mary Kenny

When the North Brexits and the South stays in the EU, Ireland faces quite a conundrum. Mary Kenny crosses the line to investigate

We’re repeatedly told that the entire future of Britain, Brexit and the EU depends upon the Irish border. Thus, finding myself recently in Drogheda (famous for being knocked about considerably by Oliver Cromwell), I drove across the border, nearby, to have a fresh look at the lie of the land.

Hostility to the existence of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is indicated by the sign proclaiming ‘Welcome to Northern Ireland’ – on Ireland’s M1 – with ‘Northern’ scrubbed out by Republican protesters.

However, it’s noticeable how the two parts of Ireland have become more aligned in recent years. In times gone by, you knew you were entering Northern Ireland because the roads were better, and the terrain looked more prosperous.

Now there is no perceptible difference in road quality, or in visible measures of prosperity. On the lesser roads, you only realise you have entered Northern Ireland when you spot a red letterbox (instead of a green one), or notice that there are no road signs in the Irish language (‘Newry’, from the Republic, is ‘An tlúr’). The kilometres have switched to miles. And where the motorist inside the UK border may be instructed to ‘give way’, on the Irish side it’s the more Barbara Cartland-ish ‘yield’.

Yet, the EU panjandrums and the Remainers have a point when they claim that it will be nearly impossible to disaggregate the two parts of Ireland when Brexit finally occurs, next March – with Northern Ireland Brexiteering and the Republic remaining. Movements back and forth across the Border are now so smooth and so automatic that checking for illegal immigrants, much less smuggled cattle, would surely be a hassle.

A County Tyrone newspaper once carried the headline: ‘Catholics and Protestants unite against ecumenism’ (a comical contradiction which contains a deeper truth). And posters of ‘Border Communities Against Brexit’ appear to indicate a similarly ecumenical sentiment. Then, at Crossmaglen in South Armagh, famed site of hardline Republican and IRA sympathies, the EU flag has joined the Irish tricolour and other patriotic Irish flags around an emblematic statue in Cardinal O’fiaich Square, proclaiming glory to those ‘who have willingly suffered for [their] unselfish and passionate love of IRISH [sic] freedom’.

A monument to national sovereignty under the flag of the ever-closer European Union? Some would see a certain piquant contradiction in this. And I’m not sure that Michel Barnier and Guy Verhofstadt should feel unmixed delight that Crossmaglen, and its ‘wild, wild men’, stands behind them.

We have had a delightful French student staying with us in Deal over the summer. He expressed satisfaction with the British train services, and their frequency. How did they compare with France? He said he couldn’t say because he never travels by train in France: he uses the successful Blablacar system of car-sharing.

I had never heard of this means of travel until recently, but several people have sung its praises; passengers and drivers contact each other via the website, and coordinate their driving plans. The passenger pays a reasonable fare, the website takes a percentage and the driver also benefits. Identities are checked out. And apparently you meet such interesting people. There is a British version (Blablacar.co.uk) but I don’t know anyone who uses it. Perhaps transport systems are still too good. I’ve been told that what really launched Blablacar in France was the train drivers’ strikes, which began in the spring.

Practically all commentators covering Pope Francis’s Irish visit at the end of August made the point that ‘Ireland has changed so much since 1979’ – when John Paul II visited. But why shouldn’t Ireland have changed since 1979? Everywhere else has.

Ireland has grown more secular over the past 39 years, as have most Western countries; and values have shifted. Granted, it would have surprised our grandmothers to see a gay Taoiseach (Leo Varadkar) reprimand the Holy Father for the failings of the Catholic Church and the odious sins of some of its adherents. But a national poll showed that people still trust the Catholic Church rather more than they trust politicians.

Noting that there have also been good Irish clergy, a diplomat tweeted about the admirable Cork-born Monsignor Hugh O’flaherty who rescued 6,500 Jews and Allied servicemen in Rome during the Second World War. He wasn’t the only one. The wild Mayo ballad singer Delia Murphy, married to an Irish diplomat in Rome, also sheltered those escaping from the Nazis. She was formally reprimanded for ‘breaching neutrality’. ‘Feck neutrality!’ she told the stuffy head of Irish foreign affairs.‘humanity is more important.’