In a recent Red C poll published in the Sunday Business Post, more than a third (36%) of those polled based in the 26 counties, when asked if they supported a hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland to curb onward migration from the UK, responded that they would. 41% of respondents were opposed to a hard border, while the remaining 23% were unsure.

While it could be argued that the question was clearly framed to elicit strong responses on immigration, it still is surprising that so many people favour the return of a hard border. It reflects the toxicity that surrounds the issue of immigration now, where people seem willing to forego their own freedoms to prevent someone from another country coming into Ireland – a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

History shows us that the effectiveness of creating a hard border would be negligible in preventing immigration into the Republic and crucially it would have a detrimental effect on movement across the border for everyone, particularly for those who live closest to it.

Since the partition of Ireland, there have been attempts to limit movement across the border at different junctures. Security concerns in the first half of 1922, during the IRA’s border campaign (1956-62), and most visibly throughout the Troubles resulted in large security presences on the border, manifested by checkpoints, craters, iron spikes and watchtowers.

The erection of customs barriers by the Irish Free State government in 1923, primarily to assert its fiscal independence from the UK, introduced a hard border that lasted for 70 years. It caused widespread disruption, displacement and stifled trade between the North and the South.

For a hard border to be effective, there needs to be stringent controls and checks in place. When customs barriers were introduced in 1923, a physical border was created that brought with it approved, unapproved and concession roads, customs huts and officers, and forms and signs all along the border. Similar measures would have to be introduced to control people movement at the border. Most entry points to and from Northern Ireland and the Republic would have to be closed.

As in the past, there would need to be only about 15 points of entry and exit at the border, not all the roads, boreens and paths that exist today. When the hard border was created in 1923, journeys across the border that beforehand were slight and easy, became long and extremely cumbersome overnight.

Customs stations were open for the clearance of merchandise between 9am and 5pm daily, except on Sundays and public holidays. If a hard border was introduced for immigration purposes, would the stations be open 24/7 or would it only be possible to cross the border at designated times?

I recently visited Montenegro, flying into Dubrovnik in Croatia before waiting for three hours in a taxi at the border controls between Croatia (in the EU) and Montenegro (not in the EU). It was not the most pleasant start to our holiday. Lengthy delays at the border, as there were in the past, will become the norm for people travelling across it if a hard border is introduced.

And for what? The imposition of a hard border would only stifle day-to-day living conditions without providing an effective deterrent against those without the appropriate visas to enter either Irish jurisdiction.

The border in Ireland has been acknowledged as being particularly porous as far as borders go. The 300-mile-long land frontier from Lough Carlingford to Lough Foyle is a meandering one full of nooks and crannies; virtually impossible to control. The roadways, fields and waterways so often used for smuggling goods and livestock during the time of customs barriers will be just as easily used to smuggle people if immigration controls are imposed on the border.

The difficulty of policing the border has been long recognised by British governments. During the Second World War, the British government introduced travel identity cards for travel between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, refusing to relax the travel requirements until 1952 to prevent “undesirable aliens from the Continent…from reaching England by the back door method of passing through Eire”.

Margaret Thatcher was frustrated with the “kinks and wiggles” of the Irish border, suggesting that a straight-line border would be far easier to control. During the rancorous Brexit debates in recent times, the enormous difficulties in imposing a hard border were regularly stressed.

The re-introduction of a hard land border could also reinforce the partition of Ireland, something presumably many who support a hard border according to the recent poll are unaware of. The creation of the land border in 1923 added a high degree of permanency to partition; the physical machinery of the customs barriers helped to cement it. Up to that point, partition was seen by many as just an administrative burden; it hardly impacted on the daily lives of people. The introduction of the customs barrier made it tangible and real.

That so many people would readily have a hard border imposed, which will result in significant distress for thousands of people here without preventing so-called “illegal” immigrants from entering the state, speaks volumes about the toxic nature of the immigration issue that exists today and the lack of clear thinking that surrounds it.

Cormac Moore will deliver the Dr Éamon Phoenix Memorial Lecture entitled Hard Border in Ireland: From Partition to Brexit as part of Féile an Phobail at St Mary’s University on August 3 at 1pm.

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