Irish Examiner view: Brexit sidelined as crunch talks falter

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Were he alive, Shakespeare might rewrite his 1593 line from Richard III: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse...” Today he might best speak to the mood of the day with: “Good news, good news, my kingdom for any good news...”

We seem, even the most naturally buoyant among us, tied to a pendulum swinging between one iceberg story or another, cut off from a sunny shore by a surging tide of unnervingly grim and distressing events.