Welcome to Sharp Talk, the regular podcast of E. Sharp Magazine.

Go to eSharp.u for free access to all the podcasts to date.

This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation with Tony Connolly.

Tony Connolly is the Europe editor of the Irish National Broadcaster, RTE.

And he has written a new book, Brexit and Ireland,

so the dangers of the opportunities and the inside story of the Irish response to be published formally on the 5th of October.

There's lots to talk about, Tony.

So let's try and focus on three or four key areas.

One is the, obviously, the economic

impact on Ireland of Brexit, the issue of free movement, the Good Friday Agreement, and

then maybe finally the potential upsides for Ireland of Brexit, if Brexit takes place, of course.

A thread throughout your book, of course, is that the,

not just the economic impact, but the political impact of Brexit on Ireland is particularly

acute compared to other members of the European Union. To what extent, therefore, does Ireland

still think that it is a special case and it deserves special treatment, both from the UK side and the EU 27 side.

I think Ireland was worried for a long time about the impact of Brexit. They had various teams

set up within government departments about a year before the referendum, trying to scope out just

exactly where the danger would fall. And obviously you had the Good Friday

agreement, the very sensitive political danger that might reside there. But then, of course,

you had a huge economic impact as well. This is what was described to me as a meteor hitting Ireland.

Put simply Britain exports about 17 billion worth of goods and services

to Ireland every year and Ireland exports about 15 billion in goods and services to the UK.

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