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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, the Eustle and welcome to the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Dublin's Trinity College for our two-part series, Oliver Callan Bins the Border, where a comedy panel imagines what a United

Ireland might look like if it ever came about. Imagine that. A shared island where we all

lived together merrily in the one state, under the one flag anthem, the one capital and the one

brand of cheese and onion crisps. Could it be done? Should it be done? Will it taste good? You're going to find out over the course of two nights, one in Dublin, where we are tonight, and one in Belfast. My name is Oliver Callan. This is BBC Radio 4, so I'm a comedian you've never heard of. Now, I am from the Ulster County of Monaghan. Yes, it's one of the three counties of Ulster that the United Kingdom decided not to

keep when it mostly left Ireland to quasi-independence in 1922. Today Monaghan is very famous for

we have chickens, poetry, playing Gaelic football in a very bitter fashion, and for hosting Paul

McCartney's unsuccessful second wedding.

Basically, we bathe in misery, but the Brits didn't want us because they already had Yorkshire.

So we got quasi-independence, or to use the expression in the Irish tongue,

Ascleilga, half-arst, half-arst independence. And so the South, of course, is you know what happened? They shook off oppression from Britain, and we quickly replaced it with oppression for the Vatican. The Brits gave us nice buildings and trains, but the church kind of gave us beatings and shame. Until we got our hands on condoms and gayness, and then the church lost interest in us entirely. The clothes... In fairness, the night we got condoms and gayness was a cracking night. Oh, I like that. Unforgettable. What a night that was. But you know the rest? Northern Ireland is still today a part of the UK. It was set up in the 17th century as a colony for people who were too angry, even for Scotland.

And the fury kind of built and culminated in 30 years of violence, which is known as the Troubles.

And that is a period that's never to be joked about, except by everyone who's ever lived in Northern Ireland, every minute of every day in every conceivable way, just never two outsiders or by outsiders. Let's meet our guests from the north to south and Britain. Neil Delamere is very well known equally north and south, but in fact Neil is from the damp middle of Ireland. Welcome to Neil. Neil.

Do you think people understand that the Irish border question is very complex? No, I don't think they do. I also think you've done down Monhand there by forgetting what is most famous for, which of course is pulling an ATM out of a wall with a JCB, I think you'll

find. People don't understand the border. Boris Johnson famously, that half man, half golden

retriever that they elected, that Milky Bar kid with a head injury, that answer to the question,

what would it look like if the hunchback of Notre Dame humped a bail of hay? That man, he famously declared it like the border between Islington and Camden.

You remember he said that? The border is more complicated than that. If you don't know,

if you're not listening from outside of Ireland, the border goes down the centre of certain roads

in Ireland, to the extent that if you're driving in one direction you're in the Republic and the other direction you're in the north, if you're listening from outside of Ireland, the border goes down the centre of certain roads in Ireland,

to the extent that if you're driving in one direction you're in the Republic and the other direction you're in the north,

if you have to drive into another jurisdiction to overtake a car,

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