The word 'irony' is sometimes preceded by 'delicious' because the ironic point or situation lays bare a hitherto unlooked for juxtaposition or intention.
The Economist reports the delicious irony, for example, that in France — the accepted cynosure of gourmet taste — 'the French can't seem to get enough of their "McDos", as the icon of American capitalism is known locally. McDonald's is opening 30-40 new outlets a year in France ... more per head than most of its European neighbours ... '
What is delicious about this, of course, is not the burgers but the confronting leadership of France, of all countries, in the fast food stakes.
Indeed, as The Economist also reports with schadenfreudian pleasure, one José Bové placed himself at the ironic centre when, having declared resoundingly that 'the French people are with us in this fight against junk food', he was arrested and jailed for trashing one of France's 900 McDonald's restaurants.
But irony is not usually delicious. For now it is sour and wounding, for example, in Ireland, where British withdrawal from the European Union — Brexit — and the Irish Republic's firm intention to remain, raises the possibility of what pundits are calling a 'hard' border between the Republic and Northern Ireland.
The Irish have vivid memories of hard borders — not the ones protected and monitored by customs and officials as is being presently mooted when Brexit is completed, but invisible, notional dividing lines where your attempt to cross might see you roughed up, abused, aggressively searched or shot.
Such was the case on 18 October 44 years ago when, having accepted an invitation to speak at a conference in Derry — or Londonderry as the British call it — I arrived in Belfast. In the words of the only cabby of the five I phoned from Belfast's besieged Aldergrove Airport who agreed to drive me to the heavily fortified Dunadry Inn, this was 'the worst night in the worst week' since 'the Troubles' had resumed in 1968.
"The air might be 'different' in Donegal if you could get at it, but we seem to have brought the smoke and the smell of burning with us."
After three hair-raising days of conferencing, punctuated by gunfire, bombings, smoke endlessly drifting across scenes of ruin and destruction, Patrick, a postgraduate student, suggests an evening out. 'You might like to get out of the Province for a while and have a few drinks in a Donegal pub.' He looks at me quizzically. 'The air's different there, they say.'
I've been fairly certain during the past few days his sympathies are with the Provisional IRA, but that's not something you talked about. So it's arranged, and that evening we arrive at the border on our way to Donegal in the Republic.
The outing is a failure. We are for a start harassed and bullied at the border checkpoint, searched over and over, the car ransacked while people waiting in the growing queue jeer and catcall. White-faced and nervous, the British boy-soldiers go about their tasks under the eye of a tough, ascetic-looking officer with a public school accent full of steel and nails — the worst kind.
Some feelings are relieved, but the general situation not at all improved when Patrick, opening the car boot for the third time, mutters, 'Fucking Brits'. We then receive a curt, crisply articulated lecture on how easily we might be delayed for the entire night.
It is a relief finally to arrive in Donegal, but the pub session for once is depressing. The place is packed with people from Derry who, having just weathered one of the most turbulent weeks in six years of blood and death, can be excused their obsessions. The talk is exclusively of the crisis — bombings, gunfire, the random shot that crossed the city and killed a young boy standing at his bedroom window, 'the Brits breaking in the front door and running through the house', the burning of the prisons, and solutions, solutions, solutions.
There is some laughter and certainly plenty of noise, but no songs. Much Guinness is moved, but the atmosphere is tense, moods brittle and a shade hysterical. The air might be 'different' in Donegal if you could get at it, but we seem to have brought the smoke and the smell of burning with us.
Though there is no delay for us, the checkpoint back into Ulster later that night is a shambles. Bolstered by the drink, the returning Derry men make fools of the inexperienced troops. There are cars angled or temporarily abandoned with no semblance of a queue. People are all over the road singing rebel songs, horns are blown, lights flash on and off ... Some of this is moderately good natured, but there is a dangerous edge to it and it could become a riot in an instant.
These are some of the scenes that the concept of 'hard' border conjures up for many people in the Republic. For better or worse, they have fought and bled initially to eliminate but finally to soften the borders that have for so long and so destructively divided the island of Ireland. Now a quixotic decision in Britain threatens to restore a poisonous aspect of an evil past. It is certainly ironic, but that's far from the point.
Brian Matthews is honorary professor of English at Flinders University and an award winning columnist and biographer. Main image: British soldiers man a checkpoint, Belfast, 1973.