TIME WAS, and not so very long ago, when the
Irish were expected to be trouble-makers; some quirk of national heredity, it was assumed, made them resentful of authority. Now, the attitude when they make a scene—as in Soho Square on St. Patrick's Eve—is one of pained surprise : what on earth have they got to quarrel about? They have got their republic : what more can they want? The answer to these questions is not without relevance to the problem of Cyprus. The partition of Ireland cured one Irish disease at the cost of perpetuating others. Rarely can a boundary be drawn which does not create its own dissensions and difficulties; particularly when (and this would apply to Cyprus even more forcibly than it does to Ireland) the line is based mainly on strategy and power-politics rather than on social considerations.
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