 I benefit immensely from the work that this institute does, and indeed it has informed some of my own paper for the Centre for European Reforms, so if you hear anything that's familiar, I hope you just take that as a compliment. The good news for academics like myself, for political scientists, historians is that this is boom time for us. Brexit has created a real opportunity and indeed a real expansion in terms of the number of students who apply for postgraduate study, master's courses in European studies in Nottingham and Swords, and everyone suddenly very interested in studying politics again, so good for us, pity about the country. But in terms of the, and in terms indeed, it's really opened up, I mean I think quite frankly a lot of people in the House of Commons were perplexed last December when the right honourable member for Old Bexley and SIGCUP, James Brokenshire, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, stood up and talked about how the UK was claiming once again all of the waters of Loch Foil. And people were surprised at this, surely no maritime border means that you know the coast of Donegal essentially has, the Irish state has no right to any waters in Loch Foil. But to understand that you see you need to you know study your history because that maritime claim goes back to the crown grant of the waters of Loch Foil to the governor and assistance of London of the new plantation of Ulster. The 17th century, who basically gave that grant of all the waters of Loch Foil to what became known as the Irish company. And the Irish company held the rights to Loch Foil right up until the early 20th century. Indeed then the British state converted that claim into a state claim after partition on the island of Ireland. So for the right honourable member of Old Bexley and SIGCUP to make that claim, he's basically leaning back to the Ulster plantation. And that in itself is unfortunate. And as you know, the rather delicate political dialogue that takes place even in the 21st century in Northern Ireland. All these issues were nicely submerged by our common EU membership and now has suddenly re-emerged to cause some awkwardness in British Irish relations. So as a historian who occasionally dabbles in the present, I previously worked at the Centre for European Forum with Simon as a foreign policy fellow, I sometimes find it's quite useful to go back and look at what were the predictions about the island of Ireland 100 years ago. And reading Tom Kettle MP for East Huron's book The Open Secret of Ireland, he makes two rather bold predictions. He says one, Ireland in the next 100 years will become much more European, much more deeply European. Good man Tom, I think you got that one right, full marks. People wouldn't perhaps have seen that in Kettle's time. The second prediction that he made was that Ulster unionism was a busted flush. And ultimately it could be quickly resolved by the Department of Education and will have nothing to do with the war office. I think we can safely say that Tom Kettle wasn't so right with respect to the enduring appeal of Ulster unionism in Northern Ireland. And indeed today we are looking at Kettle's predictions. He was in many ways very knowledgeable about Ulster unionism. He was after all an MP for East Huron. Many of his friends were Ulster unionists. He lived and worked amongst them. But what he didn't predict was that he just couldn't believe ultimately that unionists would ultimately resolve themselves to political and economic amputation from the rest of Ireland. He couldn't see why that would be rational. And indeed that instinct to some extent enures that economic arguments don't often appeal to unionists. If you consider the situation, for example, of Nathaniel Kelly, who was a farmer in Darren the Wilt in the early 20th century and indeed the grandfather of Arlene Foster, this was a man who farmed a few miles from what became the border, what was then the county border between Fermanna and Monaghan. And his whole economic world was the town of Clonus. That was his business focus. That was where his commercial money was made. And obviously when the border came along, that devastated the farming come of many Protestant unionist farmers in south Fermanna. And indeed Kelly's had to switch their economic focus away from farming to do other things. So they took state jobs for example. Arlene Foster's father John Kelly worked for the electricity board and the police because farming wasn't so viable anymore. Clonus was gone. And they tried to create a creamery and Darren the Wilt had failed. They simply couldn't really sustain. It was hard to sustain a commercial business like that when your hinterland has been cut off from you in south east Fermanna. And the imposition of a border did have a devastating economic impact on people like Nathaniel Kelly. But what is interesting is that ultimately they didn't really, the severe economic blow was seen as necessary. That ultimately the border was seen as a protection even if it meant economic duress. And essentially on the prospect of violence is obviously thankfully much diminished because of the fine work of Irish diplomats and British diplomats. And indeed the political parties in Northern Ireland and in Ireland and the UK over the last 20, 30 years. But that emotional attachment and indeed that visceral attachment to the union will indeed I would argue still Trump economic argument. So our misunderstanding perhaps of why so many, why the Protestant Unionist vote overwhelmingly voted for Brexit means that perhaps we've just forgotten a little bit about this sense of attachment. That the sense that of putting up with economic duress so as to have no split. Because ultimately to make sure that nobody could ever accuse you of not being patriotic, not being nationalistic when it comes to the United Kingdom. And the Ireland foster is an intelligent capable woman. She knows the potential damage of Brexit. But the DUP is not about to make nuanced arguments about sharing sovereignty or placing customs border in the Irish Sea. And to think otherwise is perhaps a little bit, is unrealistic to say the least. So the disappointment that I felt living in Northern Ireland at the time, living in North County Down was perhaps naive. Simply that any idea, any question that meant that talked about dilution of sovereignty, no matter how economically realistic and to do with prosperity would not easily find a nuanced answer in a community that had learned for generations to have a visceral reaction about the border and British sovereignty. Now the government here is engaged in three simultaneous and ultimately very important dialogues. The first is with Brussels and indeed I would say Irish diplomats have excelled in influencing the EU institutions over the last year or so. And in certain paragraphs for example the recent release European Commission Negotiating Directors read like a summary of Irish concerns and objectives. However I would say that there are sections of those guidelines that are potentially complex for the island of Ireland. The first is that the EU talks about preserving the status quo when it comes to human rights for EU citizens in Northern Ireland. That all Northern Irish citizens who are simultaneously also EU citizens should not have any reduction in the current rights that they enjoy. Now considering the commitment of the Conservative Government of London to looking at human rights legislation and revisiting it, especially with regards to what they claim is the ongoing terrorism threat, I think that perhaps this could be a very thorny issue and a difficult issue in terms of future EU, UK and indeed British Irish relations. The second dialogue that Irish diplomats are engaged in is of course that bilaterally with London. On the some extent this has been quite difficult and you can see the frustration in Tisha Gleoveraikar's sense of how that is going and how difficult it is to read the runes when it comes to the Conservative Party. And indeed this is the intense unresolved battle for influence over Brexit in the Conservative Party is deeply frustrating to the UK's partners. As we've seen from the intervention by the Foreign Secretary we get very much unresolved to date. A lot of people including myself were disappointed by the vague aspirational contents of the recent UK Government Brexit papers that they produced, including especially on Northern Ireland. But again reading the footnotes of this paper is revealing and that London talks about for example precedence when it comes to special status that has been granted by the EU to other parts of Europe. London talks about the access, the exceptions made in terms of trade for North Cyprus it talks about. Indeed British officials have also talked about the exceptions made for the Spanish enclase of Ceuta Meir. They talk about Bosnia and Croatia and they've even raised the idea of looking at for example how West Germany won exceptions for East Germany when it came to inner German trade in the 1980s. So there are precedence EU exceptions in terms of looking at regions that deserve special status and the UK Government has talked favourably about this. So it's not that London is against being persuaded that Northern Ireland shouldn't be given a special status. It can be. They are fearful about the reaction of the Democratic Unionist Party and here is a third and perhaps most difficult and neglected dialogue that the other state is engaged upon. Persuading unionism in Northern Ireland of Northern Ireland's future relationship with EU. And again to some extent a bit like Tom Kettle we are perplexed we don't understand. Surely it is in Northern Ireland's economic interest to have a special status, an advanced status and that ultimately if the future potential Prime Minister of the UK Boris Johnson decides to have an unreasonable negotiation with EU that leads to severe damage to the UK's economy surely there should be some type of parachute that we could find or exceptions that we could find from Northern Ireland to protect peace and prosperity on this island. But ultimately there has been a coarsening of language between North and South between unionism and Dublin over the last number of months. This is negative I would argue because ultimately what UK officials and indeed Conservative front benches will accept is that the DUP are in a position of influence now. And that ultimately even though they will consider various options for Northern Ireland dealing with unionist fears is very very important. And how the Irish state engages with this is seen as also very very important. And if there is a criticism of Ireland it is to be seen that this relationship is becoming more difficult, more complicated and there has been a coarsening of public rhetoric. So what are we ultimately to do about that? Well, the challenge for Irish officials would be to persuade unions to ultimately accept some form of plan B and plan C. Obviously what we all watched certainly I think many of us would want in this room is that the UK would either well reverse this position, stay in the single market of customs union unlikely I would say. More likely perhaps join after negotiating a EU, a UK very advanced customs agreement. But if all that falls true we need to look at some exceptional status and some exceptional ranges in Northern Ireland. But how do we do that without relaunching sort of our reconfiguring the bogeyman of Irish unity by stealth for the influential democratic unionist party? How do we sort of allay these fears? And really it's almost galling and ironic that a state that in many ways is committed to Irish unity as much as it can be achieved peacefully and consensually has to sort of think about allaying the British identity fears of the democratic unionist party. Both believe that's what we have to do if we want to have influence when it comes to getting a plan B or even a plan C in place for Northern Ireland. So that's a dialogue that has been neglected and it's not going well and it's something that perhaps we need to be quite honest about. The Kenny text was received remarkably poorly in Belfast by unionism, unionists of all stripes. We were quite shocked what they saw was a reassertion of nationalism towards Northern Ireland emanating from Dublin. It should have been surprising. Of course the Irish state was going to constitutionally really and traditionally any teacher would have felt the need to carry out his or her duty when it comes to making sure that Northern Ireland, if there is Irish unity in the future, that the EU will be able to easily allow this, this will not be a block. Nevertheless, perhaps the fact that there wasn't that intense dialogue with unionism, that I was quite shocked that they were shocked but they were shocked. And they pointed out that Fianna Fawr Party, for example, has a new United Ireland strategy that there is a lot of dialogue in Dublin talking about how Brexit will ultimately lead to United Ireland. Some of the rhetoric here that's simply rhetoric is taken very, very seriously in Belfast, especially when it's by some significant large parties like Fianna Fawr etc debating how Brexit will, as I say, lead to this inevitable, slow, irrational economic case for United Ireland in the future. So that dialogue is difficult. But the other problem that we face is that, of course, unionism particularly expects Sinn Fein to be a government in Dublin quite soon. So listening to Dublin means, does that ultimately mean that listening to a future Sinn Fein government? So there's a very sort of delicate, a lot of a number of concerns that are not, you know, in some ways have to be dealt with and are not simply born out of paranoia but are very real fears about traditional political enemies being positions of state power quite soon. Sinn Fein faces a major challenge as well. Probably the biggest challenge it has faced since the peace process in terms of, is it going to be a party of protest or a party of government? I'm not talking about the south, I'm talking about the northern Ireland. Ultimately, will it go back into the executive? If it does, it will lose some of its more militant, long-standing supporters. Very long-standing former senior members of the IRA have talked about that, post-Brexit, what they need to do is they need to make a big push for United Ireland now. And they need to do that by mobilising outside the executive, not inside the corridors of power in Belfast. So there's a big debate going on in Sinn Fein about what to do and some of their policy papers are really pushing for that more populist approach in northern Ireland. However, that would risk re-distabilising northern Ireland at a delicate time that might not be forgiven by their more middle-class conservative voters who may be spooked at the idea of political instability going on for a long period, a long period in northern Ireland. So they face a really difficult situation. They're also alarmed by the fact that the 1916 society is gaining a lot of traction in the border areas. Places like for Manor is seeing an uptick of young people getting involved in non-Sin Fein-controlled republicanism. Not violent activity, but political activity. And they have noticed this in Armagh, they've noticed this in Plating Around Neury, they've noticed it in for Manor. And so it's causing, this is a real threat to Sinn Fein. They need to decide which way are they going. They're also concerned, obviously, that if they go for a populist approach in northern Ireland, then that's going to affect their chances of maybe scare off middle-class voters in the south, restrict their chances of getting a mandate for government in Dublin in the future. So this is, not only for unionism, but also for republicanism, this is about as big a threat as they've faced since the Good Friday Agreement. When it comes to looking at bilateral state relations, I think we can agree that the common travel area will endure. And Brexit doesn't really mean that, it shouldn't mean that this will be ripped up or jeopardised at least in the short to medium term future. Indeed, UK officials are pretty satisfied that, although they won't be monitoring and sort of trying to restrict the movement of people across the border, that operations like Operation Gull, which they do in conjunction with Garde, with customs and south of the border, that they can basically ratchet this type of thing up to monitor the illegal movement of people across the border. The other thing is that of course it's going to be, in terms of, EU citizens will continue to arrive in the UK for tourism or other reasons. They won't have the right to residency perhaps, but why would they come in the back door when they could come in through the front door? And anyway, is it really that attractive being a legal EU citizen living and working in the UK, arguably not to the point that they need to seal the land border in Ireland? So, the problem that they face however when it comes to justice and home affairs is that, even though as Amber Rudd is going to set out today, the home sector is going to set out today, even though they're absolutely determined to stay in as close as possible to Europol to retain the European arrest warrant, how do they do this if all these institutions, these tools are going to be subject to European Court of Justice oversight? And indeed, not only to the ECJ, but more recently now because of new directors to the European Commission and to the European Parliament. So, Amber Rudd has stated very clearly that Norway's operational agreement that it has in place with Europol is not sufficient for the UK's counter-terrorism needs. Now, the UK is the biggest user and indeed the biggest contributor to key justice and home affairs policing and intelligence tools such as ECRIS or the Schengen Information System 2. And it would be a huge loss for the UK to lose the UK as a capable security actor in Europe dealing with serious crime and counter-terrorism issues. But it's hard to resolve some of the Conservative Party's steadfast rhetoric on European laws, courts, the European Court of Justice, and then see how justice and home affairs can still work in a way that rather naively is being advocated perhaps by the Home Secretary. Without the type of detail and deep political commitment that we need in terms of compromise. So, that's not, JHA is not going to resolve. How will that affect bilateralism ultimately? Well, the PS and I already do use the European arrest warrant frequently. It's a very important tool that the users in Northern Ireland. Similarly, the security service MI5 is increasingly using European intelligence tools. So, policing the border is made much more easy by these European institutions and tools. And a return to bilateralism creates new potential for strain. First of all, because the UK is to be frank concerned about the, I would say the amount of resources that the Irish state dedicates towards its security capabilities. The fact that Ireland for a long period, indeed, until quite recently has not been, has not linked up with EU tools such as the Siena system that allows to monitor Europe-wide crime and terrorism activity. And a sense that the guard is quite frankly overstretched before Brexit. So, after Brexit, there is a fear that, you know, is there a threat? Is there a potential for Ireland to be? You know, is there a potential here of a risk to the UK from a weaker, two-week security apparatus in Ireland? I'd say that those are real concerns and they probably haven't gone away after the London attacks when Retruid Redwan, for example, was seen to have been resonant in Ireland for some period but had not come under detection by the Irish authority. So, there is a concern there and that won't go away. In terms of what are the specific steps then that can be taken to minimise the effects of Brexit to Northern Ireland and indeed to the Ireland of Ireland more widely? I think, well, first of all, the EU has won near a unilateral option. It can maintain peace funds. And the UK has already said that that is absolutely in its interest and it will also make an unspecified contribution to that. So, the peace funds don't have to go away. Peace funds can stay, which is certainly good for Northern Ireland. It may also be possible, as Atisha has suggested for Northern Ireland to still opt into certain structural funds. He even suggested that CAP, because agriculture was a devolved responsibility of storming, that Northern Ireland could also look at CAP, staying in CAP, distinct from the rest of the UK. That comes to another issue that arises. Is it possible in a worst case scenario where the UK doesn't negotiate a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, doesn't negotiate a, you know, a deep customs arrangement that doesn't mean that that allows for more or less seamless trade, or at least trade that is not heavily interrupted between north and south of this island. What could possibly be done? Well, the European Commission wouldn't rule out the idea of looking at making Northern Ireland as an exceptional region. But, as we talked about earlier, discussed earlier with a small group here, it's very, very difficult to see how that happens without an incredibly complex fudge taking place. That means that either somehow Northern Ireland will adhere to both EU, depending on where it's sending its goods and services, will adhere to on the one hand EU standards and then also UK standards. And if the UK then wants to go and negotiate trade agreements with other countries, where does Northern Ireland stand? So it is possible to get into that realm of complexity where you start trying to detach Northern Ireland to some extent from the rest of the UK in certain sectors, or indeed entirely, and perhaps realistically the most expedient thing to do will be just to create a border in the Irish Sea. And say that, look, that is in terms of either that is the easiest way to guarantee on-island trade and goods and services. But that obviously given Northern Ireland's reliance upon Great Britain as a market, that's just probably not a starter anyway either. So Northern Ireland is literally between a rock and a hard place here. So if we do go for the complex idea of, for example, allering trying to get Brussels and London to set up some type of regime whereby goods and services that remain on-island are exempt from tariffs, for example. So you have this sort of sub-sector within that is agreed between the UK and the EU. This would be famously complicated to do in terms of, you know, policing, for example, that these goods and services wouldn't be then further exported. But according to the European Commission, indeed in London, it's not impossible to think about. So they can think about doing it. It would be just extremely difficult to implement. And would possibly jeopardise the ease in which Irish export is currently operating in the single market in the European Union as a whole and the customs union. So it's an option, but it's probably one that A will meet serious political resistance in Dublin and B right now is really a non-starter for unionism in Northern Ireland. So what we're looking at here is a series of imperfect, very imperfect, extremely difficult scenarios if the UK as a whole doesn't negotiate a very deep trade relationship with the EU going forward. But we might have to think imaginatively, we might have to think about where we don't want to think before about complex island, a single island trade zone. And that could even impact upon, again, Ireland's standing in the EU. But whether, again, whether Dublin wants to do that is quite doubtful. But it is an option. So in terms of looking at the security relationship, I would say that Brexit will cause a series of challenges along all fronts. And indeed, it's interesting to listen to the Guard of Representative Association who claim that really in terms of trying to police a border would require a serious investment in resources. Is the state willing to do that? Essentially having to pay for a neighbouring state's decision to make life in this island a lot more uncomfortable, a lot more difficult, that will require a sustained conversation, a difficult conversation at home in Ireland. We already have a very sophisticated, clearly smuggling network in this country. So the resources needed to police that, that these elements, political or otherwise, that would seek to take advantage then from the imposition of a new customs border is clearly quite worrying. And there's no easy solution to that either. The British Irish Council will possibly have to take up some of the slack of a lack of EU institutions in terms of trying to sort of problem solve some issues around the border in the future. And indeed, even if the UK does remain within EFTA and does sign a customs agreement with the EU, this will probably will need more bilateralism at some point. New institutions perhaps to try and solve issues such as deprived areas of the border, trying to limit the damage of Brexit. So the British Irish Council probably has a role as well. And again, that is something that Irish and UK officials have been slow to talk about because all the emphasis is clearly on the Brussels negotiations right now. But these are things that as the negotiations come clear, that bilateral attract will have to take, will have to become more pressing as well in terms of how do we replace the loss of certain fora and certain agencies in the future as the EU. As I said at the start, Tom Kettle was a daring man to make predictions and he made one very good one. And it's very difficult to see right now where we're going to be in five years time, never mind ten years time. But what I would say is that on the three strands Ireland has had remarkable tenacity and influence when it comes to working in Brussels and it's a credit to Irish policymakers and diplomats. But I would say that in terms of trying to secure any exemptions, whether it's structural funds or whether hopefully won't have to do this. But looking at exceptions in terms of cross border trade in the wake of a failure of the UK and the EU to agree and enhance trading, a deep and comprehensive trade agreement in customs union. Then we need to prepare the ground when it comes to conversations with unionism. Because ultimately, although unionism will, although the DUP will take a back seat in Brexit, nobody will fly the flag higher and they're not going to give nuance arguments about sovereignty. Ultimately, if the Irish government has a subtle and sustained conversation with key sectors, for example the Ulster Farmers Union, which is willing to listen and is concerned, then there is a potential here to have influence as a potential to. But it will come down to ultimately trying to reassure Ulster unionism that its identity, and this is not Irish unity by stuff, and that ultimately its identity and its place in the union can be secure while having some special relationship or status with the EU. And that is arguably the biggest challenge for the Irish state today.