Clontibret redux?

DUP leader Peter Robinson is prone, as events in Clontibret in 1986 showed, to invade the south.

However, time may be mellowing him. In 1986 he invaded the tiny County Monaghan village of Clontibret at the head of 500 loyalists, who physically assaulted the two Gardaí in the village, and held a paramilitary parade in the street. For this he was arrested and fined, and rather than succumb to martyrdom in Portlaoise Prison he paid up and left, earning himself the nickname 'Peter the Punt' amongst some of his erstwhile friends.

Now, a generation later, and hopefully a little wiser, Robinson no longer openly consorts with loyalist paramilitaries. But he clearly retains a hankering for parts of the south, as the map of DUP advice centres on their website shows:



At the bottom left, clearly south of the border (the grey line) there seems to be a DUP advice centre in Manorhamilton, county Leitrim! Further north there is another advice centre in Raphoe, County Donegal.

The DUP's new-found border-blindness is to be commended, and perhaps reflects an attempt to atone for the abandonment of southern unionists in 1922. Perhaps their next step will be to stand candidates in elections in the south - a step they have not yet dared - but if they take seriously Martin McGuinness's advice they may do so in the not-too-distant future.