I am a member of the English working class and come from an English/Irish family, with a more than usually acute sense of history. Therefore, I am naturally aggrieved by the common bonds of suffering which both my sets of ancestors endured at the hands of the divide and rule English ruling class. Moreover, I am aggrieved at the part which exploitation and history have played in dividing two sets of people who have so much in common.

Whatever. The past is the past, I suppose I ought to feel glad that the reigning monarch of this country is at last able to visit a country, which the English ruling classes systematically put the boot into for 700 years.

But wouldn't it be nice if, instead of the representative of a dying feudal monarchy, we could have sent a constitutionally elected president, to stand on an equal footing with Ireland's constitutionally elected president.