Making Sense of a United Ireland: Should it happen? How might it happen?

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How do we encourage Dublin governments in the next decade to prepare properly for the momentous possibility of Irish reunification? Time for a Department of Reunification? Northern Irish citizens are allowed to apply for Irish passports and, if the UK Government agreed, that Good Friday Agreement arrangement could be adapted for those wanting British passports. One concession O’Leary is not prepared to make to unionist opinion is the demand that Irish unity should require more than a simple majority (50 per cent plus one) in Northern Ireland, or even that it should require a majority of both nationalists and unionists. This issue should be of interest to Canadians, as the unionist position against a simple majority is in line with our constitutional law, which requires a clear majority for any province to secede. In a short section on the island’s future, O’Leary identified what he considered to be the dominant “mega-trends” in the world at large that might ensnare Ireland. Those trends included “de-democratization, plutocracy, inequality,” “the erosion of social-democratic and social-liberal parties,” and “the hollowing-out of political parties” in general. This gives us some valuable insight into O’Leary’s thinking on the EU (which is largely absent from Making Sense). The idea that Germany might one day submit to the sovereignty of the EU’s many smaller member states is quixotic. As O’Leary wryly comments, the focus of unionist discourse about the economics of Irish unity has shifted dramatically, from stressing the weakness of the southern economy to emphasizing the reliance of its northern equivalent on financial support from the British state: “‘We’d cost you too much’ became the new unionist line, aimed at tax-conscious southerners.” He insists that the southern economy is robust enough to bear the cost of reunification, which is in any case exaggerated in much of the media commentary.

That includes Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Irish Labour Party, the Greens, People Before Profit, and others. Meanwhile, younger pro-Union voters are alienated by the staunchly conservative views on issues such as LGBT rights held by some Unionists.The NHS is one of Unionism’s most powerful arguments for remaining in the UK. Healthcare is not free at the point of delivery in the Republic and prescription medicines are expensive. The first would involve a devolved Northern Ireland within an all-Ireland state, with the institutions created by the Good Friday Agreement simply passing into Irish control and the all-Ireland parliament exercising broad powers in and over the region, just as Westminster does today. As O’Leary cheekily describes it, this model would mean that Northern Ireland had its own version of “home rule” within a united Ireland. O’Leary’s view of reunification as a reset looks very much like absorption of the North into the South with a facelift for the latter. How should we respond to UToV (Unionist Threat of Violence)? Is it an attempt to deter soft voters voting unity in a referendum and the Irish government from explicitly working for reunification? Conor Houston, a first-time SDLP candidate, hopes to become the first nationalist ever elected in the unionist-dominated Strangford constituency just south of Belfast. The 39-year-old lawyer and businessman, who spent part of his youth living in England, is exactly the kind of candidate that the SDLP believe can bridge the region’s bitter divides. Moderate Unionists have turned to the centrist Alliance, which is Northern Ireland’s third largest party and is neither Unionist nor nationalist. It also has no position on reunification.

If that strategy was seen to have succeeded, I think that will leave such a bad taste that one couldn’t rule out there would be some factions, which would give vent to their outrage.”

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My party’s vision is for a republic. But why not, for example, have a role for the royals in terms of patronages and civic society?” he added. Brexit has changed everything because it has brought this conversation well beyond our republican base,” said Mr Finucane – who, like all Sinn Féin MPs, does not take up his Westminster seat.