Diarmaid Ferriter: Wilful disregard for Ireland at Westminster is nothing new
‘Breathtaking ignorance’ of Brexiteers on Border has deep roots in past affairs
Joe Duffy could have added that two of Farage’s children are entitled to citizenship here through their Irish-born mother Photograph: Alastair Grant
This month 97 years ago, British prime minister David Lloyd George was in boastful form about the Irish question that had dogged his coalition governments. The day before the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, a panicked Arthur Griffith, who led the Irish delegation, pleaded with the prime minister to obtain “a conditional recognition, however shadowy, of Irish national unity” in return for the acceptance of allegiance to the empire by an Irish Free State.
But the desperate plea was in vain; instead, a boundary commission proposal was incorporated into article 12 of the treaty; it stipulated that if Northern Ireland opted to remain separate from the new Free State, as was its right under the treaty, the boundary commission would determine the Border “in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions”.