Ireland

St Patrick’s Day, on 17 March, is now regarded as a prime opportunity for Irish politicians to travel abroad on a mission for ‘brand Ireland’. They fly off overseas, armed with the symbol of the shamrock, alerting their hosts to the shiny new liberal Ireland which is such a fabulous investment opportunity — and don’t forget the low corporation tax! Few national saints have the global reach of Patrick: it has been calculated that church bells ring out in 800 worldwide locations to celebrate the feast day of this Roman Briton who brought Christianity to Ireland in the early 5th century. Jewish bakeries in New York sell green bagels and

When politics goes round in circles, the columnist inevitably revisits issues that would have been sorted if only everyone read The Spectator. So: back to the Irish border — a demarcation that takes up no geographical space, but has still mysteriously dominated a dozen years of my life. Oh, well. What’s one more afternoon, then? Derry’s recent car bomb underscores a curious omission in all the Brexit argy-bargy about a ‘hard border’. Throughout, neither May, nor Barnier, nor even Varadkar ever utters the letters I, R and A. Yet the scummy residue of this vanquished potato blight lies at the heart of the hysteria about hypothetical border infrastructure that could

How did we get into this Brexit mess? Why is it proving so difficult to leave the EU? Was it Theresa May’s botched 2017 election, which vaporised her Commons majority? Or perhaps her general incompetence and lack of vision? How about the fierce determination of Europhile civil servants to save stupid Leave voters from themselves, cooking up a half-in-half-out withdrawal guaranteed to split the Tories? Maybe it was the cynical ambivalence of HM’s Opposition, with Labour simultaneously backing both Brexit and a second referendum, having always intended to cause chaos and spark a general election by voting down the UK’s exit, contradicting its own manifesto? Then there’s the relentless big

We may or may not hear news soon of a settlement of the Irish border issue that will allow Brexit to proceed without the calamity of ‘no deal’. Word this week was that Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar might offer a compromise ‘review mechanism’ for the ‘backstop’ which might otherwise leave the UK locked in a customs union — but like me, you’re probably none the wiser as to what that actually means. History will judge this episode as a disgraceful example of politicians bluffing in the face of tough choices rather than explaining complexities or acknowledging hard facts — set out, in this case, in a Northern Ireland Affairs select

This week, Brexit negotiations grind to a halt again as Brussels and the UK draw mutually exclusive red lines on the Irish border problem. We talk to James Forsyth and Dan Hannan on what next for Brexit. We also look a little deeper into the methods and mission of Bellingcat, the investigators that unveiled the true identities of the Salisbury suspects. And last, we investigate a sex industry that is trying to become more ethical. Brexit negotiations have hit a brick wall again, and this time, no deal looks closer than ever before. The latest snag over the Irish border seems impossible to solve. But all this is a EU

In February, I spoke at the first ‘Irexit’ public meeting in Dublin, a discussion about options for Ireland in the event of various eventualities arising from Brexit or some more fundamental disintegration of the EU. Nigel Farage was among the speakers, so what might otherwise have been ignored became the focus of finger-wagging by the media ayatollahs. Punctuating the speeches were videos about Ireland’s economy, resources, history–in-the-EU and so forth. One featured a classic Irish rock song by the venerable fivesome Horslips, a rock band of the 1970s. The song was ‘Dearg Doom’ (Red Destroyer), which turns on a riff based on an Irish march, ‘O’Neill’s Cavalry’. After the Irexit

Predictably enough, there have been no calls this week for the Irish referendum on abortion to be re-run, no complaint from Ken Clarke about the ‘-tyranny of the majority’, no moaning that the campaign had been in any way unfair. Neither should there have been. The Irish people have made a fair and democratic choice and the result should be respected. Less respect seems to have been forthcoming, however, for the views of the Northern Irish on abortion. On the contrary, no sooner was the result from south of the border announced than the calls began for the government in Westminster to impose its will on Northern Ireland and liberalise

Never one to shy away from a platitude, the shadow attorney general, Shami Chakrabarti, has declared that the PM must reform abortion law in Northern Ireland on the basis that women there “have been let down by privileged women and men for too long” and that, so far as Theresa May is concerned, “the test of  feminists is whether they stick up for all women”. So far as this woman is concerned, I’ve been trying to work out the logic of these observations in terms of the abortion question and failing, so let’s just give up and cut to the chase. Abortion is a devolved issue in Northern Ireland and

The wags of the right have been chuckling since the Irish electorate voted to legalise abortion. Ha, ha, ha, they cry, look at all those liberals. They deplore the Brexit referendum result and seek to have it overturned but are whooping with delight at the – wait for it – referendum result in Ireland. Here is Mark Littlewood of an Institute of Economic Affairs that is blocking its ears to the economic consequences of Brexit. And here is Matthew Goodwin, an academic whose attention seeking has become so desperate, I should call the Daily Mail comment desk and beg it to put the poor chap out of his misery by

The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, had declared that there would not be celebrations if and when the Yes side won in yesterday’s referendum on liberalising the abortion laws. But there’s a decidedly celebratory aspect to his side, now it turns out that nearly 70 per cent of voters voted for change. ‘Democracy in action,’ is what he now says. ‘It’s looking like we will make history.’ Or as Miriam Lord, the Irish Times’ sketchwriter, says with the unconcealed partisanship that characterised that paper’s approach to the poll, and incidentally channelling When Harry Met Sally: ‘Yes, Yes, Yes; a resounding, emphatic Yes. Suffocating old certainties, unrepresentative lobby groups and celibate