Madam, - Deaglán de Bréadún speculates that Ireland to rejoining the Commonwealth would be a significant gesture of reconciliation with Northern unionists. This is not the first time this suggestion has been made, but 10 years after the Belfast Agreement perhaps it is an idea whose time has come.
Ireland's membership of the Commonwealth would signal that Irish nationalists fully accept that the island of Ireland is a land of mulitple identities, loyalties and traditions, including British ones. Pluralism and diversity are the only possible basis for Irish unity and the realisation of the nationalist dream of a 32-county Ireland.
In the 1920s and 1930s the Irish Free State played an important role in shaping the Commonwealth as an association of free, democratic and independent states. The Commonwealth is still evolving and Ireland could play an equally important role in shaping its future. In the context of ongoing reconciliation between nationalists and unionists the renewal of Ireland's membership of the Commonwealth would be an apt way to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic next year. - Yours, etc,
Prof GEOFFREY ROBERTS, Department of History, University College Cork.