came across this while putting bookplates in all my books. It is the last paragraph of a book called "A Short History of Ireland" ©1956 Devin-Adair Publishing.

"And yet, if left on her own, Ireland (think merely of her exports) can scarcely hope to survive in this iron age, when only the giants grow and weakness means death. Will she continue in some way or other as a voluntary associate of the Commonwealth? Or will she join herself, a new star, to the 'star-spangled banner' under which live so many of her sons, to which she is drawn by so many memories, and thus become its advance guard in the old world? Or will she try and take, like Switzerland and Sweden, the risks of a precarious isolation? Various roads are open to her..."

Just found that interesting. Impossible to have predicted that "iron age" becoming an "information age," or a second "star-spangled banner" in the form of the EU being an option.

This is not the first time I've heard of mid-twentieth century sources debating a European state joining the US. The other was immediately after WWII, that if free elections in Italy elected the Marxist party, there would be agitation for Sicily to petition for statehood due to many of the same ties implied above...

just a conversation starter (I hope)...