Leo Varadkar believes people living south of the Border will one day have to apologise for abandoning northern nationalists after partition a century ago. The former taoiseach’s words in Dungannon earlier this month will be taken as a statement of the obvious by many, or most northern nationalists, since they have believed it for generations.

However, Varadkar’s speech deserves far greater scrutiny than it has so far attracted, especially his argument that southern nationalists “went off and built our State and largely forgot about what happened up here for a very long time”.

Varadkar does not elaborate on what should be on the apologies list. Reconciliation, however, should start with everyone acknowledging – especially northern nationalists – that southern Irish nationalists did not create partition. Nor were they responsible for, or could they have done much about Stormont’s discrimination against Catholics. That responsibility lies with London and a unionist-dominated Stormont.

No Irish nationalist wanted partition. Partition was created by Westminster. With the exception of a tiny number of Irish Parliamentary Party MPs, no Irish nationalist was consulted about the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, nor voted for it.

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Northern Ireland was a fait accompli by the time the Anglo-Irish Treaty talks began in late 1921, when London made clear from the off that Northern Ireland ‘s status was not up for negotiation.

Nevertheless, Arthur Griffith won a Boundary Commission to redraw the Border in line with inhabitants’........

© The Irish Times