Our joint membership of the EU has significantly helped to recalibrate Ireland’s relations with Britain. We may mourn as the British struggle to find the exit, but we must ensure that Ireland learns the lesson of how to proceed with any radical constitutional change that the future may offer

The convoluted process of obtaining UK parliamentary approval for the withdrawal deal that Theresa May and her government negotiated with the 27 member countries of the EU has made phenomenal copy for political commentators, armchair analysts, comedians and satirists, but it has shed almost no light on what a Brexit future will look like.

Observing the chaos in Westminster has been like watching a form of political necrotising fasciitis: a flesh-eating disease that has devoured time, effort, goodwill and patience, damaged reputations and relationships, and engendered profound anxieties and frustrations. Though I believe this deal is the only and the best hope for an orderly Brexit, even at this stage it is impossible to predict how this will all end. Trial lawyers recognise the door of the court moment, when, after a lengthy process of swapping documents and preparing for trial, reality finally breaks through the bluster, the parties face their strengths and weaknesses with a cold realism, and decisions are made that bring the proceedings to a close. We are not yet at that moment of closure.

On the EU side, including the Irish government, there has been clearsightedness and solidarity. A huge amount of energy has been expended in Ireland and the rest of the EU to prepare the ground for the UK’s withdrawal. No one is pretending that there will not be pain.