It is a bad idea for a would-be president of Ireland to tell a country that has proved itself a vital ally that it is looking a bit Nazi. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
Before we talk about Catherine Connolly’s startling comparison of Germany’s current increases in military spending to its massive rearmament under the Nazis in the 1930s, let’s go back to much more recent history.
In 2018 and 2019, Ireland was facing a profound crisis. The Brexiteers were trying to reimpose a hard border between the two parts of the island. It was not alarmist to fear that this could set off a chain of events that would plunge us back into the violence we had so recently escaped.
Why did the Brexiteers think they could get away with this recklessness? In a word: Germany. They were convinced that, in the final throes of deal-making, the Germans would sacrifice Ireland’s national interests to those of their own car in
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