Sinn Féin

In 2011, in what seemed like a laying to rest of the mad ghosts of Anglo-Irish history, the Queen was cheered to the rafters in Dublin.

But the building in which this celebration of amity took place had its own rather haunting presence. It was the spanking new Convention Centre, a glamorous, ultra-modern monument to the optimism of the Celtic Tiger years. By the time of the Queen’s visit, it looked out on a landscape of shattered dreams. From the top floor, you had a panoramic view of abandoned building sites on the other side of the Liffey, testaments to the folly that created a spectacular banking crisis, vicious austerity and deep disillusion with the political system that had brought such pain.

Brexit has devoured its unionist children, helping to deliver the sense of an ending for Northern Ireland as we know it

In 2021, a hundred years after the creation of Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson tweeted: “Let me underline that, now & in the future, Northern Ireland’s place in the UK will be protected and strengthened.” Since the word “not” has to be inserted automatically into every positive statement Johnson makes, unionists ought to have taken this as fair warning: Year 101 of Northern Ireland’s existence would be its equivalent of George Orwell’s Room 101, where you are confronted by your own worst nightmares.