Sir, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, May 17th) offers his usual astute observations on the propensity of the Irish and the English to misunderstand or ignore each other. Yet, I wonder whether things are quite so straightforward as he makes out?
Are we really talking about the Irish and the English? His "two primary English-speaking countries of Europe" can only be Ireland and England if we ignore the "land border" of the United Kingdom (as the British state is properly called) which runs through the north of Ireland. Otherwise the two primary English-speaking countries are Scotland and England. (For the sake of this argument I will ignore the constitutional fact that the official language of the Irish state is Irish.)
It may reassure the people of Southern Ireland that not only do the English ignore Ireland but they ignore most of England too. In other words, we are mostly here talking about Home Counties England, clustering round metropolitan London.
However, with the prospect of regional devolution in England - Greater London is already a city region in its own right - this state of unthinking Home Counties superiority may be about to come to an end. Furthermore, only one English region will have a population smaller than the Republic, the north-east at 2.7 million - the rest range from 4.1 million to 7.8 million.
Whether the Republic will enjoy being compared to an English region is another matter! - Yours, etc.,
Simon Partridge, East Finchley, London.