Comedy can often reveal unspeakable truths. There’s an exchange in Derry Girls where Orla asks: “Will we need our passports, Gerry?”

“For Belfast?” comes the reply.

Sibling rivalry between cities is not unknown: Glasgow-Edinburgh; London-Manchester; Munich-Berlin; New York- Washington; Dublin-Cork. Partition robbed Ireland of the Dublin-Belfast combo, for the moment at least.

Whether Belfast-Derry is in the sibling category is a moot point.

Casement opposition yet another example of unionism’s scorched earth mentality - Chris Donnelly

All-Ireland solutions needed for neglected Derry to realise potential - Tom Collins

Their relationship has all the hallmarks of one. Fat and needy Belfast demands all the attention and gets most of the resources; lean, edgy Derry has had to fight for survival by being creative and punching above its weight.

But, increasingly, the relationship looks less like that of squabbling kids who really love one another and more like that between a master and its slave.

On the face of it you’d wonder why. For decades the political and cultural leadership of this part of Ireland has resided in Derry. At one point you couldn’t walk down Shipquay Street without tripping over Nobel prize-winners.

John Hume was a towering figure in global politics; Martin McGuinness helped make Hume’s vision of constitutional politics real; Seamus Heaney used poetry to reach deep into the human psyche;........

© The Irish News