That’ll be weird

Back in the recent unpleasantness, when I were but a young lad, crossing the border was something of an experience: on the main roads you passed through considerable fortifications, large numbers of kids with guns, and identity checks. On the minor routes, you passed over a lovely little road marking where the Sappers would blow up the roadway if things got any messier.

Then, happily, peace broke out, choirs of heavenly money-grabbing bastards took power, and all was well. Nice, new roads have been built, generally paid for by the suddenly rich south. And the fortifications, watchtowers, identity checks and demolition markings have all gone.

But they may well be on the way back; not in the name of fighting a ‘war’ that people were at least working towards ending, but in the name of things that can have no end. So they’ll be permanent.

Travellers between the Irish Republic and Britain will need a passport when schemes launched by the two governments come into force.

Irish officials have been asked to work on ending an agreement permitting free movement between the two jurisdictions.

Of course, such checks have been going on, quietly, for a while now. Get a bus from north to south and you’ll likely be stopped and have ihre papieren inspected by a couple of lads from southern Customs, in a fairly casual way (unless, of course, you happen to look foreign. We’re a very enlightened island, you see…)

I suspect electronics and more formal checks would be something more of an inconvenience, and thusly more of an annoyance. And more of a slide back to the Bad Old Days…

2 thoughts on “That’ll be weird

  1. umm… dood if you read a bit futher on that it did actually say that it wouldnt be enforced at the Land border… as far as i remember that is.

    Though my initial reaction was the same

  2. I noticed something along those lines.

    The Home Office said it “had no immediate plans” for passport checks on travellers from Ireland to Britain.

    I find myself less than reassured, given how much a statement from the Home Office is worth these days…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>