We have learned all the bad habits of the British

Tim Pat Coogan’s excellent biography of Michael Collins highlighted the method that successive British governments employed to sate public opinion when they controlled Ireland.

Coogan wrote that the British dealt with serious public issues by buying time, being seen to be doing something, setting up a tribunal, a commission, a forum, an assembly, a convention.

The history of Ireland is strewn with such pretexts that I’m sure that Collins would have been gratified to learn that nothing has changed and that the old traditions are flourishing in the new Ireland of today.