Nationalism gave us our own Maginot Line

THOSE iodine tablets sent to every household some time back were never meant to protect us from nuclear meltdown, but they could have captured the thermal traces of our DNA for posterity.

Such pills would be time capsules of our very existence, eloquent testimony to the fact that we once had our roots on this island - and oblivious to the conceits of the 1916 Proclamation, for example, which was steeped in warped notions about who was ‘entitled’ to be here and, indeed, who was ‘entitled’ to our allegiance.

In the middle of the First World War, the Seven Samurai of Irish nationalism - Plunkett, Connolly, Pearse, Ceannt, MacDonagh, MacDiarmada and Clarke - appealed to their “allies in Europe”, the German/Austro-Hungarian alliance, as the rest of Europe, including Ireland and Britain, France, Russia, Belgium and Italy, was fighting for its life.