Should any visitor decide to test the nation’s tolerance, they might begin a conversation about the fake soldiers parading down O’Connell Street a couple of weeks ago. They can dismiss every view by resorting to that circular argument beloved of hormonal teenagers and Millwall fans back in the day: No-one likes us, we don’t care. “To support armed struggle was never popular,” they say, so they “actually don’t care about being popular”. And of course they don’t care either about “getting people elected or running in elections”. “No-one likes us, we don’t care” will only take a fake soldier so far.

Source: The Irish Times May 01, 2019 03:56 UTC