An opportunity squandered - We still pay the price today

At this remove, and after so much water has flowed under the bridge, the unannounced, low-key Dublin meeting between Northern Ireland prime minister Terence O’Neill and then taoiseach Jack Lynch 50 years ago today hardly seems significant much less seismic but it was all of that.

At this remove, and after so much water has flowed under the bridge, the unannounced, low-key Dublin meeting between Northern Ireland prime minister Terence O’Neill and then taoiseach Jack Lynch 50 years ago today hardly seems significant much less seismic but it was all of that.

The four-hour meeting was, along with an earlier one between O’Neill and Seán Lemass at Stormont in 1965, one of the stepping stones along the road to improved relationships and, eventually, after much heartache and horror, a peace supported by the majority of people happy to call this island their home.