The North, for six-year-olds

Today, at lunchtime, between mouthfuls of sardines and sweetcorn in tomato sauce (don't ask me, I just work here), my fresh-faced and innocent (more or less) six-year-old gazed idly around the room and her eye was caught by a map on the wall, drawn by a friend of ours.

She said, "Hey Mum, why is a bit of Ireland part of England?"

I opened and closed my mouth a few times. Then I stalled - "Do you mean why is part of Ireland part of the United Kingdom?" - and finally I (stammering) said "Well, for a long time, the government of England was in charge of ALL of Ireland, but the Irish people didn't like that much. So before your Nana was born, when my Nana was a little girl, the Irish government and the English government agreed that Irish people would be in charge of most of Ireland, and the English government would be in charge of just that little bit."

Then I thought about the Omagh bombing, which I think about every year now, because it was exactly eight years before Emer's birth day. I got to choose Emer's birth date, as some of you may know, because that's the nature of a scheduled caesarian section. I decided, when choosing it, that there were no benign dates...

But still, sometimes I wish there were.