Geographical remoteness from potential invaders is a defence policy in itself, the gift of providence and a substitute for heavy military expenditure. The current “decade of centenaries” might have included a Taxpayer Thanksgiving Day to mark a century of low spending on the military. In the 1990s, the EU’s capital grants in Ireland were organised in a framework called the Operational Programme on Peripherality, an acknowledgement that location on a windy rock in the north Atlantic has its downsides. Remote location has benefits too, including 3,000 kilometres of friendly, well-armed neighbours between Ireland and the Russian Federation.   Neutrality enjoys broad…

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