"Oh what a tangled thread we weave" Yes, we're a long way from Duke's original posit, and if this thread had any real clout the country should by now be a smouldering mass of destroyed government offices, bridges, empty buildings &c &c. Possibly these would be diligently being reconstructed by the Plain People of Ireland, aided by immigrants, Jews and the occasional frustrated philosopher and Scottish economist. We would be ruled (or not) by a supreme legislator called Sinead Eirann and entertained by satirical song writing and anti-semitic deceased British politicians.
Whilst awaiting the return of the rubbled edifices to agriculture,(by aforementioned Plain People, &c) all available banjo players, philosophers and poets/satirical songwriters (living or dead) will be re-educating the non banjo players, racists and general bletherers to manufacture those big, brown things for export as proposed by Flann O'Brien many years ago to the gombeens across the water, and any Johnnie foreigner who wants an Irish cow.
Meanwhile, we intellectuals in Mudcat will re-form the Miles na cGopaleen Bureau, and invent ourselves out of the fiscal slough of despond.
At the same time, fierce legions of Leprauhauns, all of whom can trace their ancestry to at least one relation of Brian Boru, will have re-taken the North (The NORTH!) and driven the Sassenach back home (to buy our cows), and harmony will have been restored. WE can then get back to drinking porter (a pint of plain is yer only man) and fighting one another.
So there!
Davy