Gerry Adams, speaking in the Dáil, reprimanded Tánaiste Simon Coveney, and others by extension, for referring to the Republic of Ireland as simply ‘Ireland’. As Adams said, ‘Ireland’ refers to the island as a whole, which is divided into two separate states.

Reminiscent of comments made by Andrew Maxwell on Radio 4 last year, in which he lambasted much of the Brexit debate by saying that the “Irish border is the beach,” and the topic of discussion was in fact the “British border in Ireland.”

Time and again, minister after minister, from Leinster House to the Palace of Westminster, have in the last three years referred to the need to “avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.”

Particularly in this small quarter of the island we are very precious about our place names, but this sort of slip of the tongue has the effect of hardening the border wherever it is uttered.

The partition of Ireland, as a reaction to the divisions of the early twentieth century, rather than averting conflict instead had the effect of putting them in a time lock and exacerbating them. One effect of this was that on both sides of the border, power was planted firmly in the hands of the partitionists, who made the border of the mind as strong and fortified as it was in their own.

One such partitionist was de Valera, and this confusion is one of the many things for which he is to blame. The Constitution of the Free State, ratified in 1937, stipulates that the state shall be referred to as Ireland in the text.

However, Article Two of the Constitution also made clear that “the national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands, and the territorial seas.” Owing to the Good Friday Agreement, this has been amended in favour of an ever closer union with reality.

Never has there ever been anything more than a notion in the minds of anyone who knew what they were talking about that the 26 counties of the Republic, alone, constitute Ireland. In much the same way that only the lying, the lazy, and the confused have ever referred to the six counties of Northern Ireland as ‘Ulster’.

In just the same way that doing the latter serves to blockade Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan off from their Ulster identity, referring to the Republic as Ireland is merely a half-witted venture of northern erasure. It dumbs down the vast and technicoloured spectrum of Irish history, and each and equal fragment of the Irish identity, into a happy wee bitesized chunk that can be sold to gullible tourists at an extortionate price, and washed down with a creamy pint of Guinness, shamrock and all.

The last three years have demonstrated fully how little knowledge of or regard for Northern Ireland there is in Britain. Evidenced by the succession of poll results that show the greatest support for Irish unity is in Britain itself. The same ignorance and ambivalence exists to some degree in the south, with the result that the Northerner is a second-class citizen in two jurisdictions.

The irony here is that Northern Ireland is in many ways the most distinctly Irish part of the island. It should be noted that the one part of Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom, was also the very last part to fall to British rule. British parliamentarians would do well to consider whenever they discuss post-Brexit border arrangements, and the illusive ‘technology’ that is key, that their forebears spent more time fighting the O’Neills than the French and the Germans.

The first part of the island to succumb to British rule was its modern day capital. Still, even a cursory glance over a map of Dublin will reveal an awful lot more English sounding place names than one will discover from Doire to An lúraigh. Arguably, partition affected the residents of the Pale more than the people of the north. Dublin was the second city of the British Empire, while Belfast was the home of the United Irishmen.

We will go nowhere until we know the fullest view of ourselves and accept it without shying away from the parts which upset homogeneity and which we would rather ignore. If there is anything that should be considered the week of the Twelfth, then let it be this.