It starts with the myth of Ireland. People fondly imagine that the immense divisions of that country could have been healed if only it had been given Home Rule at the end of the 19th century. This theory fails to notice that devolution usually brings out local enmities (look at the divisions in Scotland between the central belt and the rest). With the partition of Ireland – the independence of the Republic and devolution in the North – came civil war in the South and sectarian rule on both sides of the border.