How the Irish border was made and maintained

Exploring the multiple factors behind Ireland’s inexorable drive to independence.

FLORENCECOURT, NORTHERN IRELAND - FEBRUARY 22: The Culicagh mountain boardwalk which threads along the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on February 22, 2019 in Florencecourt, Northern Ireland. Along the winding 499 kilometers of the Irish border are vestiges of a harder boundary: derelict customs houses, "dragon's teeth" bollards and two-toned tarmac. These relics evoke a time when movement between the countries was less free, and underscore what is at stake as the United Kingdom negotiates its exit from the European Union. Both parties have vowed to avoid a physical border, but, as the Brexit deadline approaches on March 29, a final agreement has so far eluded them. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Diarmaid Ferriter’s book examines the factors responsible for the creation and maintenance of Ireland’s border and does so in succinct and engaging style. Step back and admire the first sentence: “The island of Ireland was partitioned in 1920, partly due to a combination of British duplicity, the insecurities, fears and desires of Ulster unionists, and the delusions and dashed hopes of southern Irish republicans, and partly because the likely alternative to a border was a civil war.”

During the Troubles it often looked as if civil war had arrived none the less. This is how I remember the border when I was growing up in County Donegal, in the Republic; soldiers with questions, customs officers, and watchtowers on hilltops. Security infrastructure and closed roads were the border’s most powerful manifestations, far more powerful than the line on the map. Currently it is the other way around. I have walked the border – its infrastructure is just hedgerows and streams, and it is impossible to distinguish a border hedgerow or stream from the others nearby. I lost track of the borderline many times. Up to 30,000 cross-border journeys are made every day and although the map confirms that the border has meaning, I don’t think a graphic symbol ever has has much impact as being questioned by a man with a gun.