On Friday, May 8th, Geraldine Kennedy, The Irish Times's Political Correspondent, argued that nationalist Ireland had succeeded in weakening the Union. Citing political and legal sources in presumably the Irish Government, this mischievous interpretation was no doubt designed to help the Sinn Fein leadership at its weekend ardfheis.

The article was an irresponsible intervention. It betrayed a complete misunderstanding of the constitutional and legal aspects of the Belfast Agreement.

And it could play politically into the hands of rejectionist unionists, angry and upset - like democrats outside Northern Ireland - by the fascist-style welcome for the Balcombe Street gang at the Royal Dublin Society facilitated by the British and Irish governments.

Geraldine Kennedy concluded her piece: "The British government is transferring sovereignty to the people of Northern Ireland. The Belfast Agreement will form part of the Irish Constitution. Its provisions can only be changed by reference to the people - North and South - in a further referendum." Complete tosh!

When I said at Castle Buildings on April 10th that the Ulster Unionist Party had secured the strengthening of the Union at the multi-party talks, I meant it.

Northern Ireland - which will be 200 years old constitutionally on January 1st, 2001 - remains an integral part of the United Kingdom. The Irish Government has finally reverted to de jure recognition of British territorial sovereignty after 61 years. And the concept of consent - which has a British and unionist provenance - is now unequivocally accepted by all Irish nationalists except Sinn Fein (which has, of course, only agreed to continue the republican struggle in the Northern Ireland assembly).

Dublin's fanciful hyping of the constitutional aspects of the Belfast Agreement began with Bertie Ahern's commending of it to the Dail on April 21st. One wonders about the quality of the legal advice given to him.

Judging by the interpretation put on the three legal texts in a 30-page document, the conduct of policy in the Irish State would appear to be in the hands of the people with little knowledge of, or respect for, international law. This does not bode well for the sort of practical co-operation envisaged in Strand Two of the Belfast Agreement.

Three arguments are irrefutable.

First, Northern Ireland under the 1800 Acts of Union remains firmly within the United Kingdom. The Irish act, which is the law in Northern Ireland, will not be repealed expressly or impliedly. The agreement as a whole and the draft changes in British legislation in Annex A of the agreement introduce nothing that would repeal any part of the Act of Union.

Bertie Ahern was wrong to say in the Dail on April 21st that the Acts of Union would "become[s] irrelevant for the future". This may come from the quaint view held by some Irish officials that the Acts of Union were repealed in 1922. Geraldine Kennedy's legal sources were wrong to say the second part of Clause 2 amounted to implied repeal. No less an authority than Lord Wilberforce, one of this century's most distinguished Law Lords, said in 1966 that the 1800 acts were not subject to the doctrine of implied repeal.

Successive Irish governments since Albert Reynolds have grossly misinterpreted the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, in particular Section 75. This is a saving provision, dealing with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. It has nothing to do with a British territorial claim. There is no such thing, since it is not necessary. The United Kingdom has title in international law to Northern Ireland. Its territorial sovereignty is British (and has never been Irish).

The UUP has raised no hue and cry about the 1920 act. Section 1(2) - which ironically defines residually the territory of the Irish State - will survive through the enactment of the 1925 boundary agreement. Section 75 is repeated in paragraph 33 of the Strand One section of the agreement. And will be re-enacted - in a modern form on analogy with the Scotland bill - by the United Kingdom parliament.

That Irish negotiators secured precisely nothing on these points was confirmed in a letter to me from Paul Murphy [political development minister] on April 9th. Yet Martin McGuinness told the first Sinn Fein ardfheis on April 19th that this had been the great achievement of republicans in the talks. Is he being conned? Or is he conning others? Or both?

Second, the Irish Government is finally recognising Northern Ireland. It was, of course, recognised de jure between 1925 and 1937 by the Irish Free State. De Valera's Articles 2 and 3 - contrary to what the Taoiseach told the Dail on April 21st - did amount to a territorial claim in international law. Article 2 defined "the national territory", and Article 3 referred to "the reintegration of the national territory" (the means not being specified).

This was confirmed by Chief Justice Finlay - a United Ireland is a "constitutional imperative" - in McGimpsey in 1990, a case which must be overturned by the people in the referendum on May 22nd in the Republic if the Belfast Agreement is to bind at all.

It is likely that the people of the Republic will bring the territorial claim to an end. So much can be inferred from the commitment to amending Articles 2 and 3 in the context of an agreement.

But the Taoiseach, in the Dail more than two weeks earlier, had tried to suggest that reformulation, not abolition, of Articles 2 and 3 was the objective. "The nation is not territorially disembodied," he said. "It is defined in clear terms as a 32county entity." This, as he has subsequently made clear, is quite distinct from the State which is limited to 26 counties and will no longer have a territorial claim.

For the Irish Government has recognised "Northern Ireland's status as part of the United Kingdom . . ." in Article 1 of the new British-Irish Agreement, something it studiously avoided in the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, which will, of course, cease to have effect.

Third, consent is the central concept, but of politics not law. It is true that Northern Ireland remains in the United Kingdom only because of the wish of the unionist majority, and since 1972 successive British governments have accepted that, if nationalists should prevail in Northern Ireland, it would be ceded in international law to the Republic. The law on consent is more complex.

Consent first appeared in Articles 11 and 12 of the 1921 so-called treaty, in the form of the Northern Ireland parliament deciding whether to enter a united Ireland or not. This was repeated in the so-called guarantee in section 1 (2) of the 1949 Ireland Act. And again in section 1 of the 1973 Northern Ireland Constitution Act, consent to a United Ireland now being the prerogative of the people of the province. The concept is legally developed in Annex A, but to no great extent. Essentially Annex A of the agreement repeats the 1973 Act.

Sinn Fein and the Irish Government have, deliberately or not, elided an important distinction. Consent in United Kingdom law refers to the future, the will of the people igniting constitutional change. This does not mean that constitutionally Northern Ireland's position within the United Kingdom rests only on past, and present, consent.

The Acts of Union state that the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland "shall . . . for ever[,] be united into one kingdom . . ." That remains the law in Northern Ireland. It has been modified, not repeated, by the provision that consent is the only basis of change.

This is a better synopsis of the constitutional relationship between the United Kingdom and the Irish states than the theoretical heavy breathing going on in sections of nationalist Ireland.

This might appear to be abstract lawyer's talk, insignificant in the context of promised peace and political progress. But, if there is no open recognition that Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom tout court, there will be concern in some sections of Northern Ireland that the Republic of Ireland will try, perhaps through a Supreme Court decision, to revive the claim.

It is only on the basis of constitutional reality that institutional and other political changes can be constructed within, and between, the United Kingdom and the Irish State, and a new friendly relationship created. The animadversions of Geraldine Kennedy can only diminish the chance of a new relationship.