Ireland

Ireland. I've been there twice-once to Limerick with my parents some when I have forgotten. All I remember from this visit is limestone pavements that Mum pointed out. And a smiling barwoman. The second was to Dublin in the autumn of 2009. I'd had one of my periodic bouts of itchy feet and this, together with an awkward situation in Edinburgh, a Dublin-based friend's invitation and £20 return flights with Ryanair, meant I decided to skip town for a long weekend (er 6 days).

What I remember from that visit is that it was pretty much like any Industrial-era town in the UK although much more expensive due to a bad euro exchange rate. Similar brick terrace houses, similar modernistic regeneration community centres. Similar supermarkets, language, clothes, weather... Pretty much everything was similar.

This is because the history of our two islands has been knotted together for centuries and remains tangled up today. Bizarrely I was never taught the history between the four countries of the British Isles at school- even though you would think this was a really rather important topic. In fact vast swathes of our history was missed out. Luckily Wikipedia is there to take up the slack...

So this week Queen Elizabeth paid her first visit to Ireland, at the request of the Irish government. And hasn't she done well? She has acted impeccably, expressing the heartfelt sorrow that British people feel at the horrific acts committed in our name and our wish to be as we should, neighbours working together to support each other, sharing as we do so much. The Irish have been largely very welcoming, recognising our regret at past actions.

Except for Gerry Adams and his ilk. He bitches about it "being too soon" and that the British government has refused to release details of an atrocity in 1974 committed by the Unionist Volunteer Force with the suspected collaboration of the British security services. There is no doubt these details should be released and, when they are, lets have IRA documents released about some of their sordid doings as well.

I have a strong suspicion such documents would hint Mr Adams' hands are far from clean. So he's keeping quiet about that.

So he complains about "victims of British rule" and "legacy issues" while the Queen, whose cousin was murdered in the conflict, lays a wreath on a memorial to martyred independence fighters, learns a few words of Irish, and acknowledges past wrongs.

I think people need to accept that a significant number of people in the north of Ireland wish to be British subjects and others there wish to be Irish citizens. Each side should respect the others' wish and endeavour to hold it as important as their own view.

As for Gerry Adams, his bitter hate, his caricaturing of Britain as the tyrannical colonial master, gives him his raison d'etre.  Why doesn't he go lay a wreath to a memorial for the victims of the IRA? Why doesn't he give a speech expressing regret? Because the minute he admits the bogeyman Britain no longer exists, he will fade into obscurity as the fossil he is.

I'd hate to live in a world filled with people like that.

And I'm glad we have the Queen.