On November 30, 2017, The Éire Society of Boston and the Irish Cultural Centre of New England co-hosted a presentation entitled “Brexit and the Emerald Isle”. The presentation was delivered by our own board member, Richard B. Finnegan, Professor Emeritus, from the Political Science and International Studies Department at Stonehill College. The good Professor was especially generous with his time and remarks as he entertained numerous inquiries from the host of curious attendees.

“Brexit” has become a new member of the international lexicon, and we have all come do understand that it refers to the exit by United Kingdom from the European Union. There will be significant matters of some complexity for both the UK and the EU as a result. What we do not readily understand are all the unique implications  attendant upon that exit for the Republic of Ireland.

Professor Finnegan artfully and insightfully delineated some of those implications. For example, the Republic is not leaving the EU, and thus the geopolitical border between the Republic and Northern Ireland becomes a border between a European Union member country (Ireland) and a non-European Union polity (Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom). Where there had been, as the benefit of EU membership, a free flow of goods, services, people and labor between the North and the South, the fluidity of that transmission has now been called into great question. The resolution of the future structure of that former relationship is now fraught with great challenge. Economic questions of tariffs and quotas will have a tremendous impact on trade relations between the two entities, as well as the on the economic vitality internal to each of the two countries. Matters of citizenship and passports and emigration/immigration also have now become more muddied, with their own implications for economic development.

Especially at issue are the implications for the reconciliation established by Good Friday Agreement, now almost in its 20th year. That hard-fought victory over internecine warfare seems now at some no small risk. The very terms of that Agreement were in large part drawn chapter and verse from the EU charter. Let us hope that wiser and cooler heads and minds prevail as the parties seek to disentangle the Gordian knot that is Brexit.