After the next King Billy shook hands with me recently in Belfast, I got this awful feeling the Shinners could make real tits of themselves over Queen Bess's coming Southern junket.
Prince William and fiancée Kate Middleton will be an even bigger royal sensation than Charles and Diana 30 years ago.
Viscount Gerry Adams and his Dáil brigade should use the royal visit to the Republic as a bargaining chip to overturn the hated Act of Settlement, which states that only a Prod bum can grace the royal throne.
And with the Pope due to make a Northern trip next year, the Shinners need to watch they don't provoke a protest reprisal from fundamentalist Protestants if republicans kick up a stink when Prince William's granny tours the South in a few months' time.
Sinn Féin can also score some brownie points by offering to 'lean' on republican dissidents not to ruin the Southern royal rumble.
Top cop Matt Baggott has warned about the terrorist threat posed by republican dissidents. The last thing Ireland needs is for these dissident nutters to attempt a Mountbatten-style bomb blitz.
William and Kate are being successfully marketed as the royal couple for all people. Their wedding next month will be a tremendous boost to the steadily growing Catholic royalist lobby in Ireland.
Dissident republicans also pose a significant threat to mainland Britain. Sinn Féin could use its influence to ensure they do not cause mayhem during that royal shindig in London.
The Shinners need to box clever and not revert to silly anti-monarchist rhetoric. Republicans should come to terms with the political reality that moves to bring the Southern state back into the British Commonwealth are no longer silly Unionist jibes.
It may take more than a multi-million euro bailout to save the Republic from long-term economic disaster. Ireland is suffering the Famine Mark Two. European Union dosh will simply not be enough to protect the island.
Ireland as a geographical entity needs to be an integral part of a wider, more powerful political block – a block which only the old Empire can provide.
A century ago, Home Rule was a very dirty phrase among Ireland's Unionists. It would be ironic if Unionists commemorated the centenary of the signing of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant by formally agreeing to a united island within the Commonwealth.
If Sinn Féin behaves itself over the royal wedding and Southern Irish trip, nationalist middle class voters could reward the party by making it the largest Stormont party in 5 May Assembly poll.
Then again, what happens if Martin McGuinness becoming First Minister forces Unionists to form a single party?
Ironically, a single Unionist Party is the only way forward for the pro-Union community in Ireland – and it could take a Sinn Féin victory in the May poll to achieve this.
In this scenario, Unionists could make the Assembly unworkable by becoming Protestant Shinners and refuse to agree to any legislation.
If Unionists can adopt an all-island political agenda, perhaps the phrase 'royal republicans' could make its way into the nationalist agenda.
This is also the 30th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strikes. I wonder what Bobby Sands would make of a low-key protest against royals roaming around the Republic?
