“One of the great architects of our peace process, Mr John Hume, used to speak of the border not simply as ‘a line on a map’, but as the institutionalised division that can exist for centuries ‘in hearts and minds’”. The Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Mgr. Eamon Martin, wrote this in a message to the Irish, released yesterday to mark St. Patrick’s Day, the patron saint of Ireland. “If we have learned anything since the Good Friday Agreement, Mgr. Martin wrote, “it is that partnership and tolerance, mutual trust and respect, equality and a complete renunciation of violence, are essential for the building of a lasting and just peace”. “All the more reason then for us to resolve, in the name of Saint Patrick, to avoid any return to an infrastructure of suspicion and division which could so easily set back decades of progress”, the Archbishop continued, referring to Brexit and to the fact that relations are becoming “more strained and fragile”. “If we are to find a way forward and face our many challenges”, the Archbishop exhorted the Irish, “we need to recover that spirit of fraternity and strive to do bigger and better things”.