One hundred years ago this week, the Irish government entered crisis talks with its British counterpart over the unresolved question of the Border. The Boundary Commission, created under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, had finished its long-delayed work. Many nationalists had believed the commission would transfer substantial areas of Northern Ireland. The assumption was that a truncated Northern state would soon prove unworkable and that unity would inevitably follow. A newly assertive and sometimes irredentist Irish nationalism has begun to surface, dismissive of the other traditions on the island.
