Brexit: Former ambassador warns NI concerns 'cannot be ignored'

Dáithí O'Ceallaigh was writing for the Institute of International & European Affairs

Ireland's former ambassador to the UK has warned Brexit concerns among either main community in Northern Ireland "cannot be ignored or left to fester".

Dáithí O'Ceallaigh made the comments in an article he co-authored.

He was writing for the Institute of International & European Affairs (IIEA).

He said the response of unionism to the Brexit deal carries echoes of the opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985.

That agreement faced huge, sometimes violent, opposition from unionists and loyalists in Northern Ireland.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement, signed by Margaret Thatcher, gave the Irish government a formal consultative role in Northern Ireland.

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Mr O'Ceallaigh said the Brexit deal was "a triumph of creativity and compromise" between the EU, and the Irish and UK governments.

However, he adds it has had the consequence of alienating the Democratic Unionist Party, who had explicit assurances from the previous Conservative government that "no British prime minister could accept" such a deal.

The former ambassador says Brexit has "re-injected some tension" into British-Irish relations.

But he draws optimism from the fact the breakthrough which lead to a Brexit deal came from a one-to-one meeting between UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

"Managing the relationship in the context of the uncertainties created by Brexit will require vision and imagination, but the previous four decades of the relationship - up to and including the recent Brexit breakthrough on the Wirral - indicate there is little shortage of that on either side," he said.