So – fed up with Spain’s lack of support – Catalonia has voted for independence.

And even if it doesn’t achieve that, it will at the very least get a much better economic deal from lawmakers in Madrid.

Meanwhile in Ireland, Donegal is shown this week once again why it’s still – even more than ever – the ‘Forgotten County.’

A glossy, 151-page recently-released ‘National Development Framework’ report states categorically that spending much effort on helping the county and the Northwest in general will “demand some level of constraint on Dublin,” adding, that this “could result in diminishing the scale of overall national development.”

Not one single urban center earmarked for future development in the plan lies anywhere near Donegal. And there’s no mention of linking Letterkenny, Derry and Strabane in a much-heralded economic hub.

Is it not time to shove off the shackles and go the way of Catalonia?

Is it not time to revisit my idea from several years ago as published in a series of full-page articles in the ‘Donegal News’ for the establishment of an Independent Republic of Donegal?

Sounds like the work of a depraved mind? Of a man standing too long in the rain?

I ask you: hold off on that view until you’ve first read the articles:

Democratic Republic of Donegal

Donegal: the ‘Remembered County’

Then see if perhaps you don’t agree that it might actually be a well-considered and pragmatic approach to solving all of Donegal’s long-time economic and employment woes.

Indeed, rapidly – though not quite overnight – it perhaps might even transform the county of Donegal into the richest per capita region in the entire nation, north and south.

Fond reading.