Good article, and I hope to see Unherd follow it with articles about how the economic union of a united Ireland might be brought about, and in particular how the UK can avoid the inevitable attempts of Dublin and Brussels to make the British taxpayer bankroll such a hugely expensive operation.
I say this as an Anglo-Irishman myself, who remains – emotionally at least – committed to the principle of a united Ireland. But I’m also a British taxpayer who has no intention of paying a great big invoice for something that isn’t my fault.
And in case anyone’s wondering, the same logic applies to the concept of a united Great Britain. England, Scotland and Wales would be insane to dispense with the political union that has made the island of Great Britain a coherent political, social and economic entity, but we cannot simply expect the English taxpayer to keep up the fiscal transfers north and west to a bunch of third-rate political hacks who use part of the money to insult and undermine the Union.
John, it suited Britain economically when they created the statelet in the first instance. Let it suit them now and in the future when they have to renegotiate what they, themselves, instigated…….and oversaw for years.
Britain created the statelet in response to pressure from the Unionists, who threatened an armed rebellion. It may have been a mistake, but perhaps they also avoided a bloodbath that would have made the Troubles look relatively trivial.
Northern Ireland certainly wasn’t set up for economic reasons. ‘Unionist pressure’ – you could say exactly the same of the armed rebellion in the South during the Great War, which was initially extremely unpopular with the Irish people at first. The Republicans only gained sympathy as a result of the British policy of executing the leaders of the Easter rising. It was Sinn Fein who in fact departed more radically from the legal policy of Home Rule, which was established only in Northern Ireland.
Whatever, both the Sinn Fein in the south and the Unionists in the North subsequently gained electoral legitimacy. There was no greater or lesser degree of legitimacy of Northern Ireland vs the Republic.
Are you happy to subvent NI within the UK? If so wouldn’t it be a simple matter to continue that subvention for a period until the new (federal?) united Ireland settled into place? Perhaps we can have Scotland in the federation as well: we can call it the FCS: Federation of Celtic States!
ARNAUD ALMARIC
1 year ago
Thank you for that, but can we please stop using that ridiculous euphemism ‘The Troubles’ to describe what is/was a disgusting little war.
Sadly, but predictably you made no mention of the pernicious influence of the wretched USA in all this. The malignant influence of the Kennedy Clan, NORAID, Biden, Pelosi & Co is ever present. Between them and IRA/Sinn Fein they have made Irish whinging into an art form!
“But the British establishment has no real commitment to maintaining the Union with Northern Ireland”. If only that were true! Yet it patently isn’t, despite the enormous subsidy to NI, which would be far better spent on England’s areas of deprivation. Additionally the vexatious prosecution of octogenarian veterans continues unabated to the eternal shame of HMG, and the Prime Minister in particular. Nothing will ever sate IRA/Sinn Fein’s craving for revenge at any cost, so let’s be done with them, now and forever.Amen.
“Thank you for that, but can we please stop using that ridiculous euphemism ‘The Troubles’ to describe what is/was a disgusting little war.”
We can certainly avoid the euphemism, but we can’t call it a war because it wasn’t one. It was a sustained period of terrorist activity the principle victims of which were Irish people themselves. What sort of war is it in which one side attacks mainly its own people?
Why would referring these events in Northern Ireland as a ‘dirty little war’ add anything to our understanding of them? Firstly, there have been all too many ‘dirty little wars’. The term ‘The Troubles’ is not a euphemism but is well understood by all sides – we know what it means and that is what any good phrase should achieve.
Only perhaps if we want to accelerate endless linguistic degradation (cf ‘horrific’) would there be any reason not to accept this – perhaps it should be reserved for events such as losing ones car keys!? The linguistic equivalent of this term has been used in other epochs of history and countries including Russia. The term ‘Holocaust’ did not originally mean the mass extermination of human beings but was a sacrificial offering.
Richard Turner
1 year ago
In all these discussions about the future of NI few commentators ask does the Republic actually want unification. The economics of unification are highly disadvantageous. Current budget deficit of NI is about Euro 12 Billion. Entire government spending of the Republic is about Euro 10.5 Billion.
The plan, of course, is to do a repeat of the Brexit withdrawal deal in which Dublin’s big brother in Brussels threatens the UK with a trade war unless it pays for twenty or so years of unification costs.
You wouldn’t need the Northern Ireland Protocol would you? Northern Ireland would be fully part of the Irish Republic? This would at least make simpler the trade issues between UK and EU, which could become entirely separate from the the issue of internal Ireland trade.
You’re out by a factor of ten – 2022 Irish government spending is just under €100 billion, see https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/
Unification would be dauntingly expensive, but not impossible, especially when you drill down to areas of the NI deficit that would not carry over e.g. on defence spending. Certainly far cheaper than the proportion of the UK national debt assumed by Ireland on independence, until it was waived by the UK as an impossible burden.
Your point bout whether people would actually want reunification given the costs remains valid.
It is great pity that no one in Ireland or for that matter the USA is prepared to acknowledge the extraordinary generosity of HMG in waiving that debt owed by the nascent Irish Republic.
I also seem to recall a more recent ‘bail out’ by the UK to the Republic, during yet another Banking Crisis.
However gratitude is last thing one would expect from the Republic is it not?
Sadly graciousness has often been in short supply in Anglo-Irish relations. The multi-billion pound loan from the UK in 2010 was paid off last year, along with nearly half a billion euro in interest. It helped to prop up the solvency of UK banks exposed to Ireland, but it was an enormously helpful initiative at the time for the Republic.
In 1925 I believe it was Birkenhead, not known for his sympathy for Irish nationalism, who recognised that expecting the Irish Free State to pay something like 80% of annual GDP to service the proportion of UK debt inherited at independence was wholly unrealistic.
Unfortunately the magnanimity of that move was hushed up because it was used as a quid pro quo for the scuttling of the Boundary Commission report, that had been expected to hand back parts of Fermanagh and Tyrone that had large Catholic, nationalist majorities to the Free State.
Instead, we maintained the ancient county boundaries that run through living rooms, giving us the porous border that has proved so troublesome in Brexit negotiations.
Neither side wanted to implement the Boundary Commission recommendations: reducing the area of Northern Ireland on the one hand, but even more importantly acceptance of which would have nullified the Irish constitutional claim on the North.
This is not the first time a Nationalist party has won the popular vote in a Northern Ireland Assembly election. The SDLP did so in 1998, and the proportion of seats won by Nationalist parties then (42 out of 108) and their share of the popular vote was almost identical to what it is today (35 seats out of 90), a quarter of a century later. The BBC could hardly get over its excitement at Sinn Fein’s “victory”, but 71% of voters continue to have no time for them.
Personally I’d like to see the Alliance Party win 100% of the vote in NI.. move on fgs!
Don Graham
1 year ago
A couple of weeks ago an opinion poll showed only one third of respondents wanted a United Ireland. A larger proportion wanted a UI eventually. Patriotism verses reality!
For decades the IRA and laterly Sinn Fein have put every effort into making Northern Ireland’s existence unsustainable. Imagine if Sinn Fein accepted the fact that a United Ireland was decades away and decided, until then, to reverse their efforts and actually work to improve the province. Wouldn’t that be lovely.
It reminds me of St Augustine’s famous prayer: “Lord grant me chastity and continence. But not yet!” A united Ireland is always more attractive when it’s in the future. The reality – inheriting a million Protestant Unionists – would be more of a mixed blessing. I still hope that it will happen, but I can understand why some Irish politicians might secretly hope that it doesn’t happen on their watch.
To be far they have been doing that.. and some of the better Unionists as well.
Jeremy Eves
1 year ago
The media is focussing on the so called unstoppable momentum towards a border poll driven by Sinn Fein, whose share of 1st preference votes at Stormont has not changed much. The problem for Unionists is the disintegration within their voters.
I am a persuadable unionist, ie one for whom a united Ireland is neither unthinkable nor automatically anathema. There are a few big issues
A) Must a new Ireland necessarily mean a Gaelic hegemony? Not if I am to support it.
B) Are unionists prepared to enter a debate on what a new Ireland would have to be in order to have their support. If they wont debate, and continue with NO as their primary political strategy, then they will have to Iive with whatever they may eventually be forced to accept.
C) A Northern vote for a united Ireland has be mirrored by consent in the Republic. But the Good Friday Agreement does not specify the means of assessing such consent. Most people assume it implies a referendum in the Republic also. The GFA does not specify that. My assumption (fear) is that a Sinn Fein government in the Republic would act on the basis that government consent is national consent because, certainly at present, a referendum in the Republic would be against re-unification for economic reasons.
D) What would a united Ireland mean for the person on the street both in the North and the Republic? Hard facts and analysis are required. Detail is needed, but the politicians are feeding either emotional feel good or doomsday apocalypse. The media need to put hard questions rather than allowing grandstanding by both sides.
While I’m proud of the achievements of the republic, personally I think that a new Ireland that simply assimilates unionists, requiring them to either keep their heads down or leave, would be a disaster.
The Irish constitution (Article 3) aspires to uniting the people of Ireland “in harmony and friendship .. in all the diversity of their identities and traditions.”
For me that means British and Northern Irish identity has to be celebrated in any new state. I’d like to see:
Ongoing devolution of the NHS, PSNI and education to a NI assembly (the all-island parliament will have enough to do aligning currency, taxes, benefits and enterprise policy)
Ongoing cultural and symbolic ties between GB and NI, such as having the monarch as co-head of Stormont along with the President, maintaining passports and citizenship for NI citizens, the Common Travel Area and the NI Protocol, as well as the NI football team (with FIFA’s blessing) and BBCNI
A renewed focus on productivity and skills building within NI to boost economic growth and reduce the burden of budget deficits on the 32 county state as soon as possible
You can happily forget about A) – as a CoI person living in the RoI I can assure you we have virtually no animosity. CoI (and Jewish) people are greatly overrepresented in Irish politics and Irish life generally. We just don’t do the sectarian thing. We find it distasteful.
I can also assure you that support for SF (including mine) is solely based on their socialist policies: I say that as a passivist. The RoI is a warm, welcoming, open and fair-minded place to live: not without its own issues but far far better than NI any day! A simple solution would be a Federal Ireland with NI having a good deal of autonomy.. and we can rejoin the Commonwealth too if that helps!
Mike Wylde
1 year ago
What is never mentioned is the possibility of the Unionist side adopting the tactics of the IRA. It took a large percentage of the British army to keep any form of peace, the Republic doesn’t have an army able to even contemplate such action and the border is just as porous as it ever was.
I wonder what the reaction of the EU would be to a Unionist campaign across the Republic and Brussels?
After all, it worked for the IRA and we have nothing to lose would be the thought.
The same cultural veneration for “physical force” simply doesn’t exist in the Unionist community. The political wings of Loyalist paramilitaries got hardly any votes, in stark contrast to Sinn Fein, and although some in mainstream Unionist parties had a sneaking sympathy for paramilitarism, it wasn’t remotely comparable to actually taking orders from the IRA Army Council. More likely a United Ireland would lead to substantial emigration to GB, at least of anyone who could afford to move, similar to the South after 1922.
How many truly active members of the IRA were there? A few hundred unionists bombing their way around the Republic and Europe would be quite enough to stop unification. They don’t need a political wing as their aim would be to stop change whereas the IRA was trying to force change.
You think people who still celebrate a battle from many centuries ago are just going to say “forget it, it doesn’t matter”. You may believe so, I don’t.
We have been hearing ‘fighting talk’ from Unionists like Carson and others for well over a century, with little result. In fact all that the ‘Shankill Road’ thugs recently achieved, was the squalid murder of about 700 individuals over 30 years of mayhem.
One has to ask : If Ulster is right, will it really fight?
Unionism has been impotent? An idiosyncratic reading of history, to say the least. Carson stopped Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. That is a significant political achievement, whether you approve or not. The Sunningdale Agreement was also brought down in the 70s by strong Loyalist opposition, mainly through the means of an all-out strike.
Perhaps, but bar for Sarajevo, Home Rule would have been pushed through despite Carson. The belligerence of WSC would have been very useful here!
I agree about Sunningdale, but that is more a reflection on the arrant weakness of HMG, rather than Loyalist strength.
Historically a major opportunity was missed in September 1969, when a rather feeble Harold Wilson failed to implement Martial Law when the troops arrived. It would have taken no more than a “whiff of grapeshot”*to put the Loyalists back in their box.
One difference is that outside interests have been willing to support the republican campaign, with weapons, money, and political support, the last including by many in the UK. I can’t think of anyone outside NI willing to support unionist violence; they’d be on their own.
David Frost
1 year ago
The situation that the Republic faces shortly with the implosion of the Euro swill make reunification seem like an impossible dream
By tying their fiscal policy with an organisation that views Ireland as a useful idiot, the financial outlook is far to bleak to consider the costs of reunification.
Of course Brussels sees Dublin as a useful tool, but only when it suits them and doesn’t cost them money they don’t have
Surely to mean the UK and the £stg don’t you? Do you watch the news? Are you so out of touch you havent heard of the multiple crises besetting the UK? Soon to have a million ‘destitute’ according to your own ESRC.
James Kirk
1 year ago
If a referendum is called I’d hope it’s not a 50-50, more 60-40 or we’ll see terrorism again and emigration to make Calais to Kent irrelevant.
David McKee
1 year ago
The problem with this piece is that it’s filled with sweeping statements: “Historically, religion has been a predictor of party affiliation…”, “Historically, unionist allegiance has taken the form of dependence.”, “But the British establishment has no real commitment to maintaining the Union with Northern Ireland…” None of these statements is wholly true, and never has been. They are largely true, or sometimes true, but that’s not the same thing at all. Prof. Bourke (because he does not have to live in Northern Ireland) misses the essential truth about the Good Friday Agreement: that it is unworkable. It is a recipe for permanent stalemate. Anything proposed by one side is vetoed by the other, just because it can. And if the political cleavage remains existential, between unionist and nationalist, nothing whatever will change. The only way out is to replace the existing cleavage with our more familiar conservative/progressive cleavage. This is happening, but very slowly. It needs to be speeded up.
You are right about the permanent stalemate. Forcing agreement sort of works if there is a spirit of co-operation, but absent that it’s almost a guarantee of institutionalised disagreement.
Now YOU exaggerate: ‘everything proposed is vetoed by tge other side”? Everything? Really? …a little research will correct your rhetoric.
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
NI nationalists that vote Sinn Fein ain’t stupid; just like Scots that vote SNP ain’t stupid. Neither want to separate from the U.K. given its largesse and opportunities.
Andrew Langridge
1 year ago
The DUP shot themselves in the foot by opposing Theresa May’s ‘Irish backstop’, and thus helping to bring her down. The new protocol that Johnson negotiated is patently worse for them than the backstop, which would have kept NI in some aspects of the Single Market and avoided a border down the Irish Sea.
Yes indeed, the GOM for many, but the MOG for some.
Damian Grant
1 year ago
…just like a nationalist majority was never meant to be inevitable. In this day and age, who knows what counts for certainty, especially with the roller-coaster pace of change as it is…
The reason the DUP were ineffective in the recent elections is that despite the border in the Irish Sea, NI industry is doing really well and why wouldn’t it! It has the penny and the bun: free access to GB and the EU. The best of both worlds. And all at the cost of a bit of paperwork for the GB-NI part. If NI business people dislike the paperwork that much they can get everything they need from the EU (including the ROI) and export to the UK paperwork free if NI and GB agree to that.. if they’re unhappy with the paperwork associated with NI checks on GB import then simply don’t import GB goods. Easy solution. Anything required from GB can be got from the EU via the ROI or from the ROI itself. Remember NI voted remain (in the EU). And all Ireland can rejoin the Commonwealth if that is useful to heal old wounds.. move on fgs!
When Unionists had a slim majority then they shouted ‘majority rules’ in the faces of Nationalists: now that the tables are turned they want to change the rules! The clear answer is a federal Ireland with NI having a good deal of autonomy, within the EU. GB is going down the tubes fast and the DUP are becoming dodos.. Let’s move on.
Ray Mullan
1 year ago
As a distinct geographical entity with a moderately small population and a border that is more porous than that between the USA and Canada, the island of Ireland should be united under the government of Dáil Éireann.
The sense of this was made plain by the fiascos around Brexit and Covid in recent years.
I like to think the strident hibernophobic voices of Ulster unionists would be better employed shaking–up our cosy political establishment south of the border — surely preferable to being paid stooges for that other cosy political establishment across the water.
Last edited 1 year ago by Ray Mullan
Alan Fitzgibbon
1 year ago
Just under 400 years ago, the Earl of Tyrone, the great Hugh O’Neill, was finally dispossessed and with the other Gaelic Ulster chieftains, O’Donnell and Maguire, forced into exile. The final collapse of Gaelic Ireland, followed by the colonisation and plantation of Ulster (theft on a grand scale). Quite apt therefore that an O’Neill from Tyrone, and female at that, is now First Minister.
“the Earl of Tyrone, the great Hugh O’Neill”, was roundly defeated by. Mountjoy at Kinsale in 1602. ‘ Vae Victis.’
He was fortunate not to be “hanged and headed” like his predecessor’ ‘Silken Thomas’, Earl of Kildare.
Last edited 1 year ago by ARNAUD ALMARIC
Dermot O'Sullivan
1 year ago
An innocuous article in my opinion and peppered with bland generalisations. Some good commentary apart from the dunderhead who blames everyone bar the British government, the ultimate creators of an historical disaster.
Good article, and I hope to see Unherd follow it with articles about how the economic union of a united Ireland might be brought about, and in particular how the UK can avoid the inevitable attempts of Dublin and Brussels to make the British taxpayer bankroll such a hugely expensive operation.
I say this as an Anglo-Irishman myself, who remains – emotionally at least – committed to the principle of a united Ireland. But I’m also a British taxpayer who has no intention of paying a great big invoice for something that isn’t my fault.
And in case anyone’s wondering, the same logic applies to the concept of a united Great Britain. England, Scotland and Wales would be insane to dispense with the political union that has made the island of Great Britain a coherent political, social and economic entity, but we cannot simply expect the English taxpayer to keep up the fiscal transfers north and west to a bunch of third-rate political hacks who use part of the money to insult and undermine the Union.
John, it suited Britain economically when they created the statelet in the first instance. Let it suit them now and in the future when they have to renegotiate what they, themselves, instigated…….and oversaw for years.
Britain created the statelet in response to pressure from the Unionists, who threatened an armed rebellion. It may have been a mistake, but perhaps they also avoided a bloodbath that would have made the Troubles look relatively trivial.
All true but now all old hat: let’s move on fgs!
Northern Ireland certainly wasn’t set up for economic reasons. ‘Unionist pressure’ – you could say exactly the same of the armed rebellion in the South during the Great War, which was initially extremely unpopular with the Irish people at first. The Republicans only gained sympathy as a result of the British policy of executing the leaders of the Easter rising. It was Sinn Fein who in fact departed more radically from the legal policy of Home Rule, which was established only in Northern Ireland.
Whatever, both the Sinn Fein in the south and the Unionists in the North subsequently gained electoral legitimacy. There was no greater or lesser degree of legitimacy of Northern Ireland vs the Republic.
You make a valid point.
Are you happy to subvent NI within the UK? If so wouldn’t it be a simple matter to continue that subvention for a period until the new (federal?) united Ireland settled into place? Perhaps we can have Scotland in the federation as well: we can call it the FCS: Federation of Celtic States!
Thank you for that, but can we please stop using that ridiculous euphemism ‘The Troubles’ to describe what is/was a disgusting little war.
Sadly, but predictably you made no mention of the pernicious influence of the wretched USA in all this. The malignant influence of the Kennedy Clan, NORAID, Biden, Pelosi & Co is ever present. Between them and IRA/Sinn Fein they have made Irish whinging into an art form!
“But the British establishment has no real commitment to maintaining the Union with Northern Ireland”. If only that were true! Yet it patently isn’t, despite the enormous subsidy to NI, which would be far better spent on England’s areas of deprivation. Additionally the vexatious prosecution of octogenarian veterans continues unabated to the eternal shame of HMG, and the Prime Minister in particular. Nothing will ever sate IRA/Sinn Fein’s craving for revenge at any cost, so let’s be done with them, now and forever.Amen.
“Thank you for that, but can we please stop using that ridiculous euphemism ‘The Troubles’ to describe what is/was a disgusting little war.”
We can certainly avoid the euphemism, but we can’t call it a war because it wasn’t one. It was a sustained period of terrorist activity the principle victims of which were Irish people themselves. What sort of war is it in which one side attacks mainly its own people?
We in the US are experiencing that now.
Q : “What sort of war is it in which one side attacks mainly its own people”?
A: A Civil War.
Why would referring these events in Northern Ireland as a ‘dirty little war’ add anything to our understanding of them? Firstly, there have been all too many ‘dirty little wars’. The term ‘The Troubles’ is not a euphemism but is well understood by all sides – we know what it means and that is what any good phrase should achieve.
Only perhaps if we want to accelerate endless linguistic degradation (cf ‘horrific’) would there be any reason not to accept this – perhaps it should be reserved for events such as losing ones car keys!? The linguistic equivalent of this term has been used in other epochs of history and countries including Russia. The term ‘Holocaust’ did not originally mean the mass extermination of human beings but was a sacrificial offering.
In all these discussions about the future of NI few commentators ask does the Republic actually want unification. The economics of unification are highly disadvantageous. Current budget deficit of NI is about Euro 12 Billion. Entire government spending of the Republic is about Euro 10.5 Billion.
The plan, of course, is to do a repeat of the Brexit withdrawal deal in which Dublin’s big brother in Brussels threatens the UK with a trade war unless it pays for twenty or so years of unification costs.
While a tapering subvention would be desirable, retention of the NI Protocol and the Common Travel Area would be far more important in the long term.
You wouldn’t need the Northern Ireland Protocol would you? Northern Ireland would be fully part of the Irish Republic? This would at least make simpler the trade issues between UK and EU, which could become entirely separate from the the issue of internal Ireland trade.
You’re out by a factor of ten – 2022 Irish government spending is just under €100 billion, see https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/
Unification would be dauntingly expensive, but not impossible, especially when you drill down to areas of the NI deficit that would not carry over e.g. on defence spending. Certainly far cheaper than the proportion of the UK national debt assumed by Ireland on independence, until it was waived by the UK as an impossible burden.
Your point bout whether people would actually want reunification given the costs remains valid.
It is great pity that no one in Ireland or for that matter the USA is prepared to acknowledge the extraordinary generosity of HMG in waiving that debt owed by the nascent Irish Republic.
I also seem to recall a more recent ‘bail out’ by the UK to the Republic, during yet another Banking Crisis.
However gratitude is last thing one would expect from the Republic is it not?
Sadly graciousness has often been in short supply in Anglo-Irish relations. The multi-billion pound loan from the UK in 2010 was paid off last year, along with nearly half a billion euro in interest. It helped to prop up the solvency of UK banks exposed to Ireland, but it was an enormously helpful initiative at the time for the Republic.
In 1925 I believe it was Birkenhead, not known for his sympathy for Irish nationalism, who recognised that expecting the Irish Free State to pay something like 80% of annual GDP to service the proportion of UK debt inherited at independence was wholly unrealistic.
Unfortunately the magnanimity of that move was hushed up because it was used as a quid pro quo for the scuttling of the Boundary Commission report, that had been expected to hand back parts of Fermanagh and Tyrone that had large Catholic, nationalist majorities to the Free State.
Instead, we maintained the ancient county boundaries that run through living rooms, giving us the porous border that has proved so troublesome in Brexit negotiations.
I gather Birkenhead and Collins got on rather well, or is that just an urban myth?
Mutual respect between bitter opponents is not uncommon.
Was visiting in Fermanagh last week. Didn’t know that about the Boundary Commission.
Neither side wanted to implement the Boundary Commission recommendations: reducing the area of Northern Ireland on the one hand, but even more importantly acceptance of which would have nullified the Irish constitutional claim on the North.
Your figures are way off. Please recheck both..
This is not the first time a Nationalist party has won the popular vote in a Northern Ireland Assembly election. The SDLP did so in 1998, and the proportion of seats won by Nationalist parties then (42 out of 108) and their share of the popular vote was almost identical to what it is today (35 seats out of 90), a quarter of a century later. The BBC could hardly get over its excitement at Sinn Fein’s “victory”, but 71% of voters continue to have no time for them.
Personally I’d like to see the Alliance Party win 100% of the vote in NI.. move on fgs!
A couple of weeks ago an opinion poll showed only one third of respondents wanted a United Ireland. A larger proportion wanted a UI eventually. Patriotism verses reality!
For decades the IRA and laterly Sinn Fein have put every effort into making Northern Ireland’s existence unsustainable. Imagine if Sinn Fein accepted the fact that a United Ireland was decades away and decided, until then, to reverse their efforts and actually work to improve the province. Wouldn’t that be lovely.
It reminds me of St Augustine’s famous prayer: “Lord grant me chastity and continence. But not yet!” A united Ireland is always more attractive when it’s in the future. The reality – inheriting a million Protestant Unionists – would be more of a mixed blessing. I still hope that it will happen, but I can understand why some Irish politicians might secretly hope that it doesn’t happen on their watch.
To be far they have been doing that.. and some of the better Unionists as well.
The media is focussing on the so called unstoppable momentum towards a border poll driven by Sinn Fein, whose share of 1st preference votes at Stormont has not changed much. The problem for Unionists is the disintegration within their voters.
I am a persuadable unionist, ie one for whom a united Ireland is neither unthinkable nor automatically anathema. There are a few big issues
A) Must a new Ireland necessarily mean a Gaelic hegemony? Not if I am to support it.
B) Are unionists prepared to enter a debate on what a new Ireland would have to be in order to have their support. If they wont debate, and continue with NO as their primary political strategy, then they will have to Iive with whatever they may eventually be forced to accept.
C) A Northern vote for a united Ireland has be mirrored by consent in the Republic. But the Good Friday Agreement does not specify the means of assessing such consent. Most people assume it implies a referendum in the Republic also. The GFA does not specify that. My assumption (fear) is that a Sinn Fein government in the Republic would act on the basis that government consent is national consent because, certainly at present, a referendum in the Republic would be against re-unification for economic reasons.
D) What would a united Ireland mean for the person on the street both in the North and the Republic? Hard facts and analysis are required. Detail is needed, but the politicians are feeding either emotional feel good or doomsday apocalypse. The media need to put hard questions rather than allowing grandstanding by both sides.
While I’m proud of the achievements of the republic, personally I think that a new Ireland that simply assimilates unionists, requiring them to either keep their heads down or leave, would be a disaster.
The Irish constitution (Article 3) aspires to uniting the people of Ireland “in harmony and friendship .. in all the diversity of their identities and traditions.”
For me that means British and Northern Irish identity has to be celebrated in any new state. I’d like to see:
Ongoing devolution of the NHS, PSNI and education to a NI assembly (the all-island parliament will have enough to do aligning currency, taxes, benefits and enterprise policy)
Ongoing cultural and symbolic ties between GB and NI, such as having the monarch as co-head of Stormont along with the President, maintaining passports and citizenship for NI citizens, the Common Travel Area and the NI Protocol, as well as the NI football team (with FIFA’s blessing) and BBCNI
A renewed focus on productivity and skills building within NI to boost economic growth and reduce the burden of budget deficits on the 32 county state as soon as possible
‘Cant see a problem with any of that. A federal Ireland I believe is the answer.
You can happily forget about A) – as a CoI person living in the RoI I can assure you we have virtually no animosity. CoI (and Jewish) people are greatly overrepresented in Irish politics and Irish life generally. We just don’t do the sectarian thing. We find it distasteful.
I can also assure you that support for SF (including mine) is solely based on their socialist policies: I say that as a passivist. The RoI is a warm, welcoming, open and fair-minded place to live: not without its own issues but far far better than NI any day! A simple solution would be a Federal Ireland with NI having a good deal of autonomy.. and we can rejoin the Commonwealth too if that helps!
What is never mentioned is the possibility of the Unionist side adopting the tactics of the IRA. It took a large percentage of the British army to keep any form of peace, the Republic doesn’t have an army able to even contemplate such action and the border is just as porous as it ever was.
I wonder what the reaction of the EU would be to a Unionist campaign across the Republic and Brussels?
After all, it worked for the IRA and we have nothing to lose would be the thought.
The same cultural veneration for “physical force” simply doesn’t exist in the Unionist community. The political wings of Loyalist paramilitaries got hardly any votes, in stark contrast to Sinn Fein, and although some in mainstream Unionist parties had a sneaking sympathy for paramilitarism, it wasn’t remotely comparable to actually taking orders from the IRA Army Council. More likely a United Ireland would lead to substantial emigration to GB, at least of anyone who could afford to move, similar to the South after 1922.
How many truly active members of the IRA were there? A few hundred unionists bombing their way around the Republic and Europe would be quite enough to stop unification. They don’t need a political wing as their aim would be to stop change whereas the IRA was trying to force change.
You think people who still celebrate a battle from many centuries ago are just going to say “forget it, it doesn’t matter”. You may believe so, I don’t.
We have been hearing ‘fighting talk’ from Unionists like Carson and others for well over a century, with little result. In fact all that the ‘Shankill Road’ thugs recently achieved, was the squalid murder of about 700 individuals over 30 years of mayhem.
One has to ask : If Ulster is right, will it really fight?
Unionism has been impotent? An idiosyncratic reading of history, to say the least. Carson stopped Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. That is a significant political achievement, whether you approve or not. The Sunningdale Agreement was also brought down in the 70s by strong Loyalist opposition, mainly through the means of an all-out strike.
Perhaps, but bar for Sarajevo, Home Rule would have been pushed through despite Carson. The belligerence of WSC would have been very useful here!
I agree about Sunningdale, but that is more a reflection on the arrant weakness of HMG, rather than Loyalist strength.
Historically a major opportunity was missed in September 1969, when a rather feeble Harold Wilson failed to implement Martial Law when the troops arrived. It would have taken no more than a “whiff of grapeshot”*to put the Loyalists back in their box.
(* No more than 50 dead.)
One difference is that outside interests have been willing to support the republican campaign, with weapons, money, and political support, the last including by many in the UK. I can’t think of anyone outside NI willing to support unionist violence; they’d be on their own.
The situation that the Republic faces shortly with the implosion of the Euro swill make reunification seem like an impossible dream
By tying their fiscal policy with an organisation that views Ireland as a useful idiot, the financial outlook is far to bleak to consider the costs of reunification.
Of course Brussels sees Dublin as a useful tool, but only when it suits them and doesn’t cost them money they don’t have
Surely to mean the UK and the £stg don’t you? Do you watch the news? Are you so out of touch you havent heard of the multiple crises besetting the UK? Soon to have a million ‘destitute’ according to your own ESRC.
If a referendum is called I’d hope it’s not a 50-50, more 60-40 or we’ll see terrorism again and emigration to make Calais to Kent irrelevant.
The problem with this piece is that it’s filled with sweeping statements: “Historically, religion has been a predictor of party affiliation…”, “Historically, unionist allegiance has taken the form of dependence.”, “But the British establishment has no real commitment to maintaining the Union with Northern Ireland…”
None of these statements is wholly true, and never has been. They are largely true, or sometimes true, but that’s not the same thing at all.
Prof. Bourke (because he does not have to live in Northern Ireland) misses the essential truth about the Good Friday Agreement: that it is unworkable. It is a recipe for permanent stalemate. Anything proposed by one side is vetoed by the other, just because it can. And if the political cleavage remains existential, between unionist and nationalist, nothing whatever will change.
The only way out is to replace the existing cleavage with our more familiar conservative/progressive cleavage. This is happening, but very slowly. It needs to be speeded up.
You are right about the permanent stalemate. Forcing agreement sort of works if there is a spirit of co-operation, but absent that it’s almost a guarantee of institutionalised disagreement.
Now YOU exaggerate: ‘everything proposed is vetoed by tge other side”? Everything? Really? …a little research will correct your rhetoric.
NI nationalists that vote Sinn Fein ain’t stupid; just like Scots that vote SNP ain’t stupid. Neither want to separate from the U.K. given its largesse and opportunities.
The DUP shot themselves in the foot by opposing Theresa May’s ‘Irish backstop’, and thus helping to bring her down. The new protocol that Johnson negotiated is patently worse for them than the backstop, which would have kept NI in some aspects of the Single Market and avoided a border down the Irish Sea.
If only we’d listened to Gladstone.
Duplication!
Yes indeed, the GOM for many, but the MOG for some.
…just like a nationalist majority was never meant to be inevitable. In this day and age, who knows what counts for certainty, especially with the roller-coaster pace of change as it is…
Your namesake went to secondary school with me!
The reason the DUP were ineffective in the recent elections is that despite the border in the Irish Sea, NI industry is doing really well and why wouldn’t it! It has the penny and the bun: free access to GB and the EU. The best of both worlds. And all at the cost of a bit of paperwork for the GB-NI part. If NI business people dislike the paperwork that much they can get everything they need from the EU (including the ROI) and export to the UK paperwork free if NI and GB agree to that.. if they’re unhappy with the paperwork associated with NI checks on GB import then simply don’t import GB goods. Easy solution. Anything required from GB can be got from the EU via the ROI or from the ROI itself. Remember NI voted remain (in the EU). And all Ireland can rejoin the Commonwealth if that is useful to heal old wounds.. move on fgs!
When Unionists had a slim majority then they shouted ‘majority rules’ in the faces of Nationalists: now that the tables are turned they want to change the rules! The clear answer is a federal Ireland with NI having a good deal of autonomy, within the EU. GB is going down the tubes fast and the DUP are becoming dodos.. Let’s move on.
As a distinct geographical entity with a moderately small population and a border that is more porous than that between the USA and Canada, the island of Ireland should be united under the government of Dáil Éireann.
The sense of this was made plain by the fiascos around Brexit and Covid in recent years.
I like to think the strident hibernophobic voices of Ulster unionists would be better employed shaking–up our cosy political establishment south of the border — surely preferable to being paid stooges for that other cosy political establishment across the water.
Just under 400 years ago, the Earl of Tyrone, the great Hugh O’Neill, was finally dispossessed and with the other Gaelic Ulster chieftains, O’Donnell and Maguire, forced into exile. The final collapse of Gaelic Ireland, followed by the colonisation and plantation of Ulster (theft on a grand scale). Quite apt therefore that an O’Neill from Tyrone, and female at that, is now First Minister.
“the Earl of Tyrone, the great Hugh O’Neill”, was roundly defeated by. Mountjoy at Kinsale in 1602. ‘ Vae Victis.’
He was fortunate not to be “hanged and headed” like his predecessor’ ‘Silken Thomas’, Earl of Kildare.
An innocuous article in my opinion and peppered with bland generalisations. Some good commentary apart from the dunderhead who blames everyone bar the British government, the ultimate creators of an historical disaster.
..and still at it to this day! Epitomised by goofy but malignant BJ and the Eton crowd in Whitehall. Plus ça change eh?