100 years after separation, is Irish Unity now inevitable?
Will Northern Ireland beat Scotland in the race to leave the Union?
Ireland is a truly fascinating country, it’s history naturally heavily intertwined with Britain, usually at Ireland’s expense. These days it has a population of around 4.8m (roughly half that of Greater London) but this is actually well down on the 6.5m they had back in the 1840s when an event us outsiders know as the Potato Famine took place. In Ireland, this was known as the Great Hunger. The kicker of course is the word famine suggests there was some natural tragedy at play but actually it was just the British shipping all the food off around the Empire and not leaving enough for the Irish. Of course you could argue in the long run, this has helped the Irish develop a global cultural presence unsurpassed by other nations. You might be in a wintry Vladivostok or in famed Timbuktu, but there’s a decent chance of an Irish pub there.
As little as 5 years ago, Irish unity was something that was considered very unlikely, the status quo was working. And frankly there was a degree of apathy about it all as given that both the UK and Ireland were in the EU, there wasn’t going to be much that would realistically change. Aside from the nationalist argument, there was not a real benefit to reunification. Even in the Rugby, Ireland already plays as a united country, so what more was reunification really going to unlock for them? I jest slightly of course.
But 5 years can also be an extremely long time in politics. The UK, in its infinite wisdom, decided that Brexit was a grand old idea. It is notable that when you look at the split by nation, England and Wales voted to leave, but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. This is not new information, but it reaffirms that for many people in Ireland, the status quo was working out pretty well for them. It is easy for people my age to forget, but the Troubles were not that long ago. The IRA were still bombing London in 2001 and considering I now live here, it is impossible to be ignorant of the 1996 bombing in Manchester city centre. This remains the largest bomb detonated in Great Britain since World War 2 and only two terrorist attacks globally were more financially damaging to a city. 9/11 was one of those two.
So to older generations, you can see why the status quo might be more appealing, having witnessed some of the levels of violence that a passion for reunification can create. The IRA has taken more of a back seat these days, but they had always maintained that the path to Irish unity was two-fold “by the bullet or by the ballot”. Their representation at the ballot box has always been Sinn Fein who are making this subject more topical again. On top of Brexit muddying the waters again, in the Irish election two weeks ago, Sinn Fein topped the poll in 30 of 39 constituencies in the Republic giving them a real chance of power in the South for the first time. Ireland actually have what I would consider a reasonably balanced democracy so coalitions are necessary and there is still no guarantee they will end up with any say at all, but they are as close as they have ever been.
Results in full are below – SF is Sinn Fein, FF is Fianna Fail, FG is Fine Gael, IO is independents, GP is Green Party, Lab is Labour, SD is Social Democrats and SPBP is Solidarity – People before Profit. You need 80 seats to form a government so you can see a grand coalition is inevitable. That could in theory lead to a Sinn Fein Taioseach (pronounced Tea-shock, literally means Chief, but can be read as Prime Minister).
Naturally the condition Sinn Fein have attached to any coalition talks is that a border poll is held within five years. And the leaders of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have also said they would want to see a unified Ireland in their lifetimes. So on the southern side of the border, all seems to be in favour of Irish unity.
Given Sinn Fein have maintained a strong presence up north as well in the Northern Irish Assembly, all of a sudden we have the political arm of the reunification movement with a degree of power both sides of the border. And the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 which ended the Troubles has literally underwritten the legal right for a border poll to be called if there appears to be a majority in favour of it so the British government could not even stop it if they wanted to.
You can easily see how the campaign would play out with those in favour of Irish reunification painting it as a grander European vision for Ireland where the North can recover the benefits lost through Brexit. Northern Ireland voted by 56% to remain in the EU and this offers those 56% a way back in. Legally, there are still hurdles, but for the first time in a long time, Irish unity has a sense of inevitability about it that will only continue to grow as the days of the Troubles fade further into memory and Brexit fails to deliver the great bounties it first promised.
To be clear, there are still lots of people to persuade and whilst the polling in Northern Ireland has moved further towards Irish reunification in recent years, we are still talking about only 35% showing a preference for that course of action. Still, stranger things have happened. In 2008, 41% of British voters indicated they would vote to leave the EU if asked. 8 years later, 52% voted for that to happen.
And Sinn Fein have time on their side, much of their support comes from young people, the old barriers of Catholic vs Protestant are slowly diminishing with younger generations less and less likely to consider that a core part of their identities. And if Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom, it would become a ticking time bomb of when, rather than if.
In conclusion, Irish unity is not imminent, but it does look inevitable.
Quote of the week goes to an Irish revolutionary, Padraic Pearse, who reminds us of the old passions on this subject:
“The man who in the name of Ireland accepts as a ‘final settlement’ anything less by one iota than separation from England is guilty of so immense an infidelity, so immense a crime against the Irish nation . . . that it were better for that man (as it were certainly better for his country) that he had not been born.”
As per usual, if you enjoyed reading the above, please feel free to share with others
Cheers,
Bryn