BREXIT
Yet as we travelled around there remained a more concerning black cloud on the horizon, particularly for the North. 'The Troubles' are not entirely dead but just dormant, as I will mention later in this trip. It is feared that a new 'hard border' between the two states will rekindle the desire of some to ferment revolution aimed at unification and in others pre-emptive action to ensure that there can be no such unification. At the time of writing 'BREXIT', British withdrawal from the EC, is in turmoil and such a 'hard border' is a distinct possibility. Since we left there has already been a terrorist bombing (on January 20) at a courthouse in Derry.
To us there seemed an obvious solution. That would be for Northern Ireland not to leave the EC. It is, after all, a self-governing country in its own right. The Scots would love to have the same option but then they would have a 'hard border'. At least the Scottish border is long established and historically defined so that it doesn't run down the centre of streets down the middle of rivers or follow ancient hedgerows across people's property. It's also shorter because it's quite straight while the Northern Irish border looks like a random squiggle by a drunken cartographer with Parkinson's. Yet again religion or perhaps patriotism seems to have got in the way of practicality.
At the time of writing it's still not resolved.
