Brexit: Irish must urge our neighbours to re-commit to EU

There's a certain irony that as we celebrate the centenary of the Easter Rising, we find Ireland again at the centre of political events in the UK - this time flying a different flag, as it were.

Time changes everything, we know. Perhaps all the change that has come about in Ireland shows what we as a nation should be most proud of.

Our position within Europe and our new, enhanced and more equal relationship with our nearest neighbour allows us to both offer an opinion on and actively lobby for the UK to remain in and committed to the EU.

From a century ago, when the debate between our two islands was a lot more heavy-handed - literally - we now find ourselves a critical trading partner for the UK.

Ireland, for instance, accounts for more in UK exports than all of the UK's BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China] exports combined.

We are also a far more interlinked player in the business world, with Irish people being the biggest single foreign group of business directors when every limited company in the UK is analysed.

Prosperity and peace

Amid all the pro- and anti-EU discussion, surely we should take time to think of how the worlds of economics and politics have managed since the second World War to combine in Europe and deliver us prosperity and peace.

No doubt the EU has many issues, and there are some ways in which Ireland might do better outside the EU - as might the UK.

But is it not time for the Irish to lobby friends and family in the UK and remind them that the common good, for the long term, is best served by all of us working together, while remembering we are neither selling out nor short-changing our hard-won independence in the process?

In these conversations, spare a thought for the largest ethnic minority in Ireland - the British. Let’s not be shy in reminding them of reasons for staying true to the EU.

From now until June 23rd is not just about the vote on Brexit, but about the voice which Ireland has as a critically important neighbour and business partner in the UK.

Whether there is Brexit or not may well prove to be as far-reaching in influence for us as the days around Easter 1916 eventually proved to be.

The aftermath may mean far greater change than people are typically predicting in advance.

Adrian Brady is an Irish man in London who has run Eulogy, the largest Irish-owned communications agency in the UK, for 20 years