Do mention the war, Enda

Given the time that’s in it, perhaps the next time Enda Kenny jets off, cap in hand for his customary pat of approval from Angela Merkel, would it not be opportune to remind her, that over 60,000 Irish citizens were mercilessly slain in the killing fields of Flanders, the Somme, Ypres and the many other infamous locations at the hands of the German military in the two World Wars?

Countless others were unimaginably maimed and brutalised by unspeakable but well-documented atrocities perpetrated by Germany and its allies throughout those times.

At the same time, he could remind her of the extraordinary generosity and vision demonstrated by the American people through the Marshall plan which, while also protecting against the advance of Communism, pumped $130bn in today’s values into Europe and Germany, resulting in a remarkable resurgence of the German economy in a few short years.