And I love that album ec, a real classic.

No worries. I’ve no great knowledge of the period in question myself, but I can see how independence negotiations would appeal to an indigenous Bourgeoisie who’d get control of the state, retention of profits, a continued export market for their products, and the kudos of being “liberators,” even if the continued dependence on British markets imposed a limit on prices and restrictions on subsequent economic development. That dependence would indeed help explain, as you point out, the third way compromise, trying to avoid anything that would damage the agrarian export market.

Thanks again for a really stimulating article.

I’m not surprised you were met with silence by the SWP. It happened to me on a few occasions too. You probably didn’t use the right jargon or draw the correct conclusion, but you were clearly too knowledgeable to debate with. Did you turn to leave and say “I’ll get me coat”?

Just out of interest, to what extent do you think decolonization was acceded to by Britain precisely because of the guarantee that access to Irish goods would not be lost? It strikes me that the speed with which Britain decolonized generally means the penny dropped that colonialism, like slavery, is less efficient economically than the exploitation of “freed” labour that has to pay for its own upkeep but which is still dependent on the former master to buy his wares.

Certainly an Autumn city - Dublin on a bright cold day in November is like a secular Newgrange inheriting the light it was built for. Autumnal too, in that it is a city of the aftermath, always late for its summer. Its first great boom barely lasted 20 years, before dying with the Union, leaving the long slow poor 19th century to scramble around in the late magnificence.

As we do now……