Ambassador says Ireland's relationship with the UK is 'very, very strong' despite 'turbulence'

Brexit was 'a major shock' to relations, but Adrian O'Neill says the countries have managed their relationship 'pretty successfully'.

Irish ambassador to the UK, Adrian O’Neill referred to 'a real challenge in terms of how you reconcile the desire on the part of the UK government for a very hard Brexit' and 'maintaining the commitments of the Good Friday Agreement'.

The Irish relationship with the UK remains “very strong” despite going through some “turbulence”, the Irish ambassador to the UK has said.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner at a community reception to mark St Patrick’s Day at the Irish embassy, Adrian O’Neill said that while Brexit had been “a major shock” to Ireland’s relationship with its nearest neighbour, relations remain strong.

“I think the fundamentals and the relationship are still very, very strong,” Mr O’Neill said: 

I think there’s no doubt that we’ve gone through some years of turbulence after Brexit.  Brexit was kind of a major shock for the relationship. 

"And it was particularly a real challenge in terms of how you reconcile the desire on the part of the UK government for a very hard Brexit, which is ultimately what it opted for, and at the same time, maintaining the commitments of the Good Friday Agreement. 

"I think that kind of struggle has imposed some stresses and strains, on the relationships between the two governments, which have had to be managed, but I think on the whole they’ve been pretty successfully managed.”

Irish Ambassador to the UK, Adrian O'Neill with Taoiseach Micheál Martin at the Embassy of Ireland in London last Saturday. Picture: James Manning/PA

Mr O’Neill said the relationship between the two countries goes much deeper than whatever contacts take place between Merrion Street and Westminster and that both share a deep history on many levels.

He said that, from the Irish side, the reopening of the consulate in Cardiff and the opening of a new consulate in Manchester were proof of the Irish commitment to the relationship. He raised the British royal family’s warmth towards Ireland as a stabilising influence on relations.

We’ve had some stresses and strains over the last few years, but that doesn’t mean that Irish and UK relations are necessarily in a bad place, because those relationships are much broader than whatever the relationship happens to be between two governments at any one time.

“That ebbs and flows, but there there are other fundamentals that are much more important — links of community, trade, business, culture.

And all of those, even during the tenser days around Brexit, all of those remained very strong.”

Mr O’Neill said he does not see the impasse on the Northern protocol solved before May’s Northern Assembly elections but said the UK’s language had softened on the issue and that political momentum could be behind a solution after the elections.

“I think on both sides, both the EU side and the UK side, there’s probably a recognition that we’re not going to make any kind of significant breakthrough before then [the elections], but that in the aftermath of the Assembly elections, we’re going to have to try and pick up this issue and see how we can try and get some political momentum behind [a solution].”

Mr O’Neill, whose tenure as ambassador ends this year, praised the Irish diaspora in the UK for its resilience and effort throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and said they had shown “great responsibility”.

“I think the Irish community here showed great patience and forbearance. And during a period of the best part of two years, certainly, 18 months, when they couldn’t really travel back to Ireland.