Personally, I have little interest in either golf or cricket (even if Harold Pinter once decreed the latter was better than sex), but the successes of Shane Lowry, winning the (British) Open and Dubliner Eoin Morgan captaining the English cricket team to World Cup success have shown, through sport, the complex web of overlapping identities that criss-cross the Irish Sea.

You might have detected by now that the English have little appreciation of the nuances of Irish history, (or the broad brushstrokes for that matter). Yet in shared cultural norms we have found a rapport.

Indeed, there’s barely a band, sports star, television presenter or comedian on our (British) screens that doesn’t have Irish roots. Don’t listen for the accents, or even, necessarily, look for the names. For every Paddy McGuinness, there’s a Peter Kay or Frank Skinner. For every Peter O’Toole, a Michael Gambon or Richard Harris. (Not to mention a second-generation Dub like Judi Dench).

When Boy George sang Kevin Barry on the BBC programme Who Do You Think You Are? – exploring his connection to Thomas Bryan; or when Alan Partridge’s lookalike belted out a satirical Come Out Ye Blank and Tans on prime-time television, there was ne’er a whiff of outrage, real or affected.

It would have been different at one time. Twenty years ago, there would have been splenetic columnists and ruddy-faced Tory MPs berating the ‘Provo BBC,’ but things are different these days.

No-one cares anymore.

British public opinion is acclimatised to Irish voices telling them jokes or reading their news. The end of the Troubles has undoubtedly made this easier. (You can probably trace the fake Irish pub phenomenon that hit British high streets in the mid-1990s to the emergence of the peace process).

Beyond the heat and fury of Brexit and the vicissitudes of Boris Johnson’s premiership, British-Irish relations are cordial and mutually productive. So much so that the British appear sanguine about major constitutional change.

A recent Ipsos MORI poll showed 19 per cent of respondents living in Great Britain (sans Northern Ireland) were explicit in wanting Northern Ireland to ‘leave the UK and join the Republic of Ireland.’ That’s about 12 million people – nearly twice the population of the island of Ireland. Barely a third of Brits were bothered with maintaining the status quo.

In the event, (the racing certainty, I would maintain) of Irish reunification, these cultural sinews will not only endure but actively help to make the process a success. This should offer Unionists some reassurance about the changed state they will inhabit.

And reassurance is legitimate given the findings of Fianna Fáil Senator Mark Daly’s report last week into Unionist attitudes to the prospect of Irish unity.

I can’t have been the only person who initially guffawed at the finding that some Unionist interviewees were worried about Mugabe-style land seizures. Although there’s not a shred of evidence to warrant such a concern, I feel, on reflection, terribly sad for anyone who worries about that as an outcome. The conversation that should follow with Unionists must be generous and accommodating. Irish unity will never be as marvellous as some hope, nor as dreadful as some expect.

In the Irish Times coverage of Senator Daly’s report, victims’ rights campaigner, Raymond McCord asked, rhetorically:

‘Will the Gardaí have a 50-50 policy? …Will the street names be in English? Will the Union Jack be flown? Will the tricolour only be flown on certain days? Will playparks be named after loyalist terrorists? Will Orange lodges be able to march through O’Connell Street?’

If this is the price of accommodating Unionist cultural touchpoints, then the only answer must be an emphatic ‘yes.’ The process of creating a single Irish state involves continuities as well as discontinuities for all sides. Change must affect everyone and in an honourable settlement no-one gets everything they want.

Of course, at an elemental level, Irish unity means Northern Ireland ceases to exist. But the Common Travel Area will remain, with people from the island of Ireland able to travel from Dublin or Belfast to London or Manchester not as foreigners, but as easily and unimpeded as someone from Edinburgh or Cardiff can.

There’s a healthy debate, too, about whether Ireland will re-join the Commonwealth at some stage. Personally, the utility of doing so escapes me; but if it’s something that matters to Unionists, then put it on the table.

Those are some of the bigger issues, but there are also less contentious ones, like ensuring there’s ready access to the BBC iplayer across Ireland. Apparently, there isn’t, currently, although any new settlement could offer that simple, quintessential expression of Britishness as a concession.

Martin McGuinness clearly recognised the power of shared culture and mutual respect in bringing people together. There he was on the BBC’s One Show, back in 2010, as part of the team that successfully lobbied for Derry to be made British Capital of Culture. He said he was ‘over the moon’ to secure the accolade.

In a divided society, pragmatism is leadership.

Despite a predictably mean-spirited Arlene Foster trying to write him out of the script, it’s clear he also played an important role in bringing the Open to Portrush last week. That he was also a fan of cricket (as Gerry Adams reminded us in a tweet last week) adds to the retrospective picture of a man of impeccable Irish pedigree who nevertheless could appreciate and enjoy the culture of the auld enemy.

If we can agree on the sporting field and find unity in our common culture, then there is surely hope that we can agree on other things too.

Kevin Meagher is the author of ‘A United Ireland: Why unification is inevitable and how it will come about’