Celtic Crosses

In the 'Celtic fringe' enthusiasm for Europe has been running at a higher level than in England. This is especially the case in Ireland where the prospect of European integration offers the possibility that a quarter of a century of conflict, rooted in allegiances to old nation states can be diffused and contained within a wider structure. This has led Richard Kearney to conceive of Irish history in different terms:

Ireland's historical divisions are in significant measure European in origin. We often forget that the Viking invasion was plotted in Norse; the twelfth-century invasion in Anglo-Norman; the Battle of the Boyne in Dutch; the Great Armada in Spanish; the 1798 landing in French... Ireland is also a European problem requiring a European solution... The last best hope lies in a federated Europe of regions.