‘Divided Kingdom’ exposed by result of UK referendum

"I think this is now a divided, not United, Kingdom," said Pete Ball (50)

, an English man living in Connemara.

Mr Ball, an English language tutor who has lived in Clifden for the past eight years, said the nature of the split really distressed him.

"The divisions in the referendum result are very geographical," he said. "David Cameron was absolutely the wrong person to be heading the Remain campaign, when this is the man who intimated that the problems faced by working-class people in relation to health, education and other key services related to the EU.

"If Cameron was really truthful, he would have said that this was down to Tory policy, not the EU."

Disappointed

Mr Ball, originally from

Ormskirk

in Lancashire, is a long- time

Labour

supporter, but said he was very disappointed by British Labour Party leader

Jeremy Corbyn

.

“The big problem was that the Remain people were too busy intellectualising it all, talking to each other and never engaging with those who disagreed with them.”

Sue Noone from Manchester, who recently moved to Castlebar, Co Mayo, said she had voted to leave the EU. "The European Commission had been so out of touch with the reality of people's lives for so long that maybe some good will come of all this."

Yorkshire-born NUI Galway lecturer in English Dr Richard Pearson said he was "hugely surprised" .

"The outcome, where Northern Ireland, Scotland and London voted to stay and England and Wales voted to leave, will take a while to sink in and there may be implications for those of us living abroad in terms of access to healthcare, pensions, insurance," he said.