MY granny was a very practical woman who believed that a dose of common sense was the answer to most problems in life.

And for her generation, which straddled most of the 20th century, there were no shortage of problems.

My generation benefited enormously from the sacrifices her generation made, battling a hostile social and economic environment in a statelet determined to treat her and her kind as second-class citizens.

We live, as they say, in different times, but surrounded still by a wealth of problems – some inflicted on us, but many of our own making.

Róisín Lanigan: To be Irish in England today is to be the punchline of an unfunny joke

One of the reasons why people are so frustrated by politics and politicians is the failure to apply common sense to decision-making.

Here’s a thought experiment.

Let’s set aside for a moment the Northern Ireland Assembly and its 90 members and replace them with 90 people selected at random from the electorate and charged with sorting things out through the application of common sense.

How do you think they would do?

Common sense tells us that pouring millions of tons of human and animal effluent into Lough Neagh is killing it; and common sense tells us that it we stop doing that, things can only get better.

Common sense (as well as bucketloads of research) tells us that writing children off as failures at 11 through academic selection is wrong and should be stopped.

Common sense tells us that we would all be much better off if we worked together rather than point-scoring.

And common sense tells us that the needs of the unionist electorate and the needs of the nationalist electorate are aligned: peace, jobs, good health, the best lives for our children, civil and religious freedom, respect for difference.

There’s a whole list of challenges – from protecting women and girls in fear of their lives from toxic masculinity, to cutting the number of deaths on the roads, to improving our environment – which have common sense solutions.

And my lived experience suggests that my ‘Random 90’ Citizens’ Assembly – freed from the burden of party politicking - would be able to come up with solutions that were deliverable, effective and untainted by self-interested lobbying groups.

So why is it so hard?

I got onto this line of thought when I came across a rare example of common sense in public life. I hope it becomes an inspiration to others.

It came from Pól Deeds, the newly-installed Irish language commissioner who last week waived his right to ignore any guidance issued by his Ulster Scots counterpart, Lee Reynolds.

Why would he want to, he said. Why indeed?

For too long language has been used as a party-political football here, with individuals and communities disrespected by antagonism which threatens to extinguish the diverse cultural mix which shapes this place and makes it special.

The debate about the constitution stands separate from the issue of how we support and encourage the traditions which make this space what it is: traditions which stretch back into prehistory, but which also draw from events throughout the course of written history – whether that be the arrival of a Welsh missionary, Norse warriors, Normandy barons, English kings, Scots settlers or the more recent waves of Vietnamese, Indians, Chinese, Poles or Romanians.

Irish is a language – a living thing – open to all to learn and to use.

It is not the preserve of a chosen few, nor should it be. That way lies extinction.

On the face of it, Deeds’s observation that “the Irish language can reflect not only an Irish identity but many other identities including a British one” sounds remarkable.

We have been conditioned to think of the language as exclusive to one political grouping here. It is nothing of the sort.

Indeed, the history of Ulster Irish tells us that it survived in large part to its promotion by Ulster Presbyterians.

Deeds went on to say: “Along with Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Scots, Manx, Ulster Scots and Cornish, Irish is an indigenous language of the UK and native to Northern Ireland.

“The Irish language is fully equipped to convey who we are as a people and as a region within these islands.”

What Deeds has articulated is pure ‘common sense’. My granny would applaud. I certainly do.

If Deeds and Reynolds can work together to detoxify the language debate from its association with the constitutional one – which is no less important, but separate – they will have gone a long way to creating the type of society we all want to see.

A society built on trust, mutual respect, dignity – but above all, a society built on common sense.

If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a Letter to the Editor to be considered for publication, please click here.

Letters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Pen names are not allowed.

© The Irish News