Tom Quinn writes in today's An Irishman's Diary piece in the Irish Times.

"In many ways it seems that the loss of British identity contributed to the economic, spiritual, artistic, moral and linguistic impoverishment of 20th-century Ireland. What is an even graver speculation however, is that the end of British rule may have given the most squalid elements in the Irish soul free rein to wreak havoc at every level of society."

Something tells me that this is going to generate a lot of correspondence for the paper. Indeed my blood is only prevented from boiling over due to my unlimited reserves of cool....