Sir, – They still don’t get it. Northern unionists don’t want Irish unity. It is not transactional; it’s existential. They do not envisage themselves, ever, as citizens of an Irish republic. And the likes of Leo Varadkar’s call for all-island “unity” as an objective of all political parties will do nothing to change unionists’ minds (“Leo Varadkar: ‘All trends point towards Irish unification in the next few decades’”, News, September 26th). It will be as successful as the Anti-Partition League that tried this tack between 1945 and 1958.
Indeed, it is likely to increase further the sense of siege and cultural colonisation already provoked by the promotion of “Irishness” in Northern Ireland, principally through the language (it’s happening in the Republic, too). To get a flavour of what this means for unionists, try turning it around. How would we in the south feel if Northern unionists aggressively started and funded a campaign for the Republic to rejoin the United Kingdom?
Things should take their course. It may seem boring and agonisingly slow. But for the foreseeable future, there will be no border poll. Despite the demographics, there’s still a sizeable majority for Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. All we can usefully do is to dial down the rhetoric and excited talk of imminent unity. One hundred years ago, Bolton C Waller, later (1932) an Anglican cleric, made a submission to the then-sitting Boundary Commission. He argued that three things had to happen to allow the island to find peace with itself: a customs union which would mitigate the worst economic effects of the Border; the satisfaction of legitimate grievances of the minorities, north and south; and co-operation between the two jurisdictions. It took until the 1990s for all these three conditions to be met even in part, and post-Brexit arrangements have to an extent seen some retreat. We still do not have the sort of Ireland that Waller imagined it could be if they had been met in full. And until we do, “unity” as an objective rather than an aspiration is a dangerous chimera that will only entrench attitudes on both sides. – Yours, etc,
IAN d’ALTON,
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Naas,
Co Kildare.