State visit seals the end of an era for Ireland
Opinion: Reciprocal state visits suggest the two countries finally see each other as separate but equal
‘As regards Ireland, the current State visit by President Higgins puts the seal on the end of an era.’ Above, President Higgins with Queen Elizabeth II during a ceremonial welcome at Windsor Castle yesterday. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
After the Treaty of 1921 the Irish poet and mystic George Russell (“AE”) pointed out, with his habitual shrewdness, that the reasons why Ireland had to separate from Britain lay in “the psychological factor” rather than oppressive government – which was, by the time of the revolution, no longer an issue. But history and psychology made the Irish regard any kind of government by the British as “a tyranny inflicted on them by aliens” who were incapable of understanding their aspirations to a less material, complacent world than the model of Anglicisation on offer.
The same message can be read through the Anglophobic reactions of many of the revolutionary generation; independence was necessary, one of them remarked, so the English would have to stop talking down to the Irish with their “damned superior smiles”. The subject of England’s condescension to its Celtic neighbours, currently back in focus as the Scottish referendum approaches, is a rich one. But as regards Ireland, the current state visit by President Michael D Higgins puts the seal on the end of an era.