What happened in 1922 is water under the bridge, and there's no real point in arguing about it. If I'd been there at the time and had a vote, I'd have voted against it. Very probably I'd have fought against it too, like my father did in Tipperary, right or wrong. (And like him I'd have lamented the double loss of Michael Collins - the loss of him to the other side, and the loss of him to the other world.)

But whatever you can change you can't change the past, and it's a waste of time acting and talking as if you could. That doesn't mean you can't learn from the mistakes of the past, and the fundamental mistake of that time way was the division between republicans; but the deeper and more fundamental mistake in earlier generations had been the division between the two sets of people who have to share the island between them of which partition when itb came became the physical representation.

Set against some of the horrors which have beset other part of the world, the divisions within Ireland would hardly register, though it seems strange to say that. If peace can't be built between the divided traditions in Ireland there's no hope for places like the former Yugoslavia or Central Africa. Ending partition on the ground isn't what it's really about, ending the division between people is what really matters.