The argument over whether or not we should rejoin the Commonwealth refuses to go away. By now we have heard, or seen, just about every shade of opinion, from the theory of how happy a re-entry might make our unionist cousins, to the notion that it would form a serious threat to our separate identity.
Incidentally, it was uplifting in this context to read in a recent interview with Lady Violet Powell (wife of Anthony) that "I have never felt the need to be someone in my own right".
We need more people like Lady Violet. The separate identity thing has been overdone.
Anyway. Just the other day a Mr David Dowsett wrote to this newspaper from the lofty eminence of Wesley Heights, Dundrum, to suggest that the Commonwealth question (and various others) might well be answered by re-establishing an independent Irish monarchy.
An added advantage, he noted, would be to tie up some loose historical ends - all the royal colleges, academies, hospitals, yacht clubs and so on that litter the Republic's telephone book "would no longer look like so many embarrassing remnants".
Inadvertently revealing just how successful the feminist movement has been in this country, our correspondent simply proposed that we elect a queen. And as a reward for his "brilliant idea", Mr Dowsett would be glad to accept the hereditary title of duke, count or even earl, "since this would further my career as a mediocre jazz musician".
I suppose he is thinking of luminaries like Duke Ellington and Count Basie, but Mr Dowsett should be aware that if he is to become Count Dowsett, this European title of nobility will in all likelihood need to be conferred, and confirmed, by the EU, which may not take kindly to Ireland redefining itself as an independent monarchy. The English title of earl, meanwhile, is the equivalent of count, not inferior to it.
Mr Dowsett's idea certainly has a lot to recommend it. Perhaps, however, we might consider not merely rejoining the Commonwealth, or re-establishing a monarchy, but building a colonial empire to rival the British Empire in its heyday.
The first beneficial effect would be to upset the dreary politically correct crowd in Britain who have all but removed imperial studies from the school syllabuses.
But we must think big. With the Celtic Tiger continuing its rampage, the time has come to let it off its lead. The neo-Celtic Empire's day has surely come.
We could start off in the way the Brits began back in the 1600s, by exporting "all vagrants, rogues and idle persons that can give no account of themselves" to our renascent new colonies around the world.
This is bound to prove popular, and could solve our irritating immigration problem at a stroke. A few years in an African swamp or a poor Indian village would surely make some of these east Europeans appreciate the order, relaxed lifestyle and wealth of opportunity in the countries they have so casually left behind.
Once the project is under way, we could then relocate many thousands of our more embarrassingly ambitious civil servants to various colonial backwaters to help put down local rebellions, keep natives in line, fill forms, drink gin, play cards, swap wives and fight malaria.
Spouses and families might be happy to stay at home, but on the verge of the millennium we would, of course, be mature enough to turn a blind eye to any private relationships our colonial representatives might form with the natives or each other.
With the creation of these new State outposts, the establishment of the neo-Celtic Empire would also ease the congestion and dissatisfaction in our diplomatic corps, particularly among the higher ranks. The Department of Foreign Affairs would undoubtedly welcome the global expansion of its frustratingly confined role.
To accomplish all this, we will of course need audacious, fearless, single-minded Irish men and women, people with a firm purpose and a proper sense of destiny. Keeping the natives in order will not merely be a question of "We have got/The Gatling gun and they have not", though naturally our representatives will have to be suitably armed.
What we need are leaders who will impress with their vision and their ambition. We want driven people like Robert Clive and Francis Drake and Cecil Rhodes, and Brooke of Sarawak, and a latter-day Lord Curzon to put it all in proper perspective.
It won't be easy. But when the history of Irish imperialism comes to be written, we want it to stand as a record to be proud of.