Madam, – David Adams’s thought-provoking piece ( “United Ireland must be capable of being sold”, Opinion, March 11th) contained the musing “This seeming confidence in the inevitability of reunification does raise the question of why nationalists and republicans are not busy preparing for just such an eventuality.”
This reminded me that during my time in the Irish civil service I once found a file from 1949 roughly-entitled “Superannuation Implications of a United Ireland”. The file contained only two pieces of paper: the first an instruction from a departmental secretary that it be opened, and the second a response from the Registry along the lines of “Here is the file you wanted opened”. For the next 40-odd years until I discovered it, nothing had been added. I sent it back to the Registry to sleep on, undisturbed. – Yours, etc,
