Hello and welcome to Brexit Republic, RTE's podcast on Brexit.

I'm Colom O'Monguyne, RTE's Deputy Foreign Editor, and in this bonus episode I have enlisted

the help of an expert to look at Ireland's withdrawal agreement from the UK in 1921, also known as

the Anglo-Irish Treaty,

and see how it compares and contrasts with the UK's withdrawal agreement from the EU.

We'll have a look at its context, its contents and its consequences.

Bit of a spoiler alert, comparisons are largely misplaced.

Context is very different, but the consequences, at least in the form of the border on

the island of Ireland, are still very much with us.

So with the start of this episode, I'm standing in the hallway of the National Archives talking

to Dr John Gibney. John, who are you? What's your job? Well, Colin, I'm one of the assistant

editors of a project called Documents in Irish Foreign Policy, which publishes the archival material relating to Ireland's foreign relations since 1919.

Now it's a partnership between the Royal Irish Academy, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the National Archives,

which is where we're based.

What I'm going to do now is bring him into those archives.

So, John, you are the author of a short history of Ireland as well.

So bearing that in mind, I want to get your opinion on trope that's been put out by Brexiteers,

including Nigel Farage, that Ireland should understand Britain's position in leaving the European Union because it left the British

Empire. We're not dealing with like with like, are we? Not quite. I suppose it's more point

now obvious points of divergence in that if you're to look at say the United Kingdom in 1990,

2021 and the EU in the 24th century. Well, the EU didn't deploy state paramilitaries in the United Kingdom.

Didn't oppose martial law on the United Kingdom.

...