Now improve relations with North’s Unionists

President Michael D Higgins’ successful State visit to Britain marks the normalising of relations between us and our near neighbours. That was the easy bit.

Normalising relations between us and our nearest neighbours, the Unionist people, may be more difficult.

For more than 100 years, we have threatened to subsume, subjugate, or colonise Unionists in a united Ireland.

If we can summon the courage to declare that a united Ireland is off the agenda, until a majority of Unionists request it, a new era of friendship between the two tribes who share this island may begin.

Dick Keane

Glenageary

Co Dublin