Every week, Adam Gannon talks to people on the doorsteps in his Fermanagh council district, which stretches from Garrison in the west to Derrylin in the east.
More of them are talking about a united Ireland than ever before “and they’re not the ones you’d expect either”, says the Fermanagh and Omagh councillor.
Today, hundreds of SDLP members gather in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in south Belfast, with most either quietly or loudly critical of Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s attitudes towards unity.
They are not alone.
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Martin’s caution – marked by his recent declaration that he “goes bananas” at talk of a Border poll – frustrates both the SDLP and Sinn Féin, but also the broader nationalist community, including people who are not politically active.
His credentials on Northern Ireland are accepted even by those who do not agree with him, especially his long-held piloting of the multibillion-euro Shared Ireland fund, the Government’s investment programme that has been financing all-island projects since 2021.
However, Gannon and others reject his argument that unity planning now by Dublin would spur unionists to pull away from co-operating with Shared Island, or edge loyalist paramilitaries into violence.
“The days of violence are over,” says the Enniskillen-based councillor, though he accepts that 66-year-old Martin’s experience of The Troubles leaves him cautious “because he’s seen how things can go wrong”.
However, the days of the past are over, says Gannon (32).
[ Martin going ‘bananas’ over Border poll makes party members go nutsOpens in new window ]
“I don’t think he’s right to be cautious; I think we’re past violence and all of that as a society,” he says.
Not wanting to spar with Martin, SDLP leader Claire Hanna has called for Dublin “to step up a gear”, saying that northern nationalists can no longer be told “to wait and be patient”.
Influential Sinn Féin back-room figure Jim Gibney is blunter.
“I’m very angry; he’s using his office to block any serious effort to move. Shared Island is very good, but he’s using it to block constitutional progress,” says the Belfast man.
Few south of the border understand the current thinking of Northern nationalists, argues Gibney, a significant figure within Sinn Féin for more than 30 years. “[Northern] nationalists of all hues are united on this.”
Although loud in his applause for Shared Island, former SDLP leader Mark Durkan agrees.
“Northern nationalists are a bit frustrated with his attitude and a bit confused,” the Derry former MP says.
The idea that there must be “some advance on unionist consent, or unspecified state of reconciliation” reached before a referendum is “well intentioned, but I don’t think it’s well considered,” he says.
Few in 1998 – the year the Belfast Agreement was signed, underpinning the Northern Ireland peace process – believed unity was close, he says.
“Unionists wouldn’t have accepted the new version of article three if they’d thought it was language committing the machinery of the Irish state to promoting and pursuing unity,” he says, referring to the article of the Irish Constitution that states Irish unity can only be agreed by democratic consent, North and South.
“Equally, few people in the South saw the agreement as a statement towards unity, even if many in the North did,” says Durkan, one of those centrally involved in the peace talks almost 30 years ago.
Equally too, few realise that political instability in Westminster could dictate the pace, says Durkan.
[ Apathy and ignorance south of the Border remain significant blocks to Irish unityOpens in new window ]
“It could be called by people in London with no interest in the North, for their own reasons.”.
Niall Murphy of the Ireland’s Future campaign group, which advocates for a Border poll and a united Ireland, is sharper in his criticisms of Martin, accusing him of “a resolute failure” to plan for an eventuality that Murphy believes is just a few years away.
“That’s no longer tolerable. It’s an abuse of the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement. It’s an insult to the sensibilities of northern nationalists, and all united Irelanders around the world,” he says.
The 1998 agreement lays down that the UK’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland “shall” call a referendum “if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting” would support unification of the island.
Despite Sinn Féin’s repeated calls for action, that threshold has not been met, or even come close, with opinion poll after opinion poll putting support for unity north of the Border at or around 40 per cent.
However, for Belfast-based Murphy, such numbers fail to tell the full picture. Unionism once had a permanent majority, but no longer.
[ Matthew O'Toole: What would a radical alternative look like for this island?Opens in new window ]
“Nationalism is the larger political bloc,” he says.
For Laura Devlin and Becca Harper, who will be two of the people at the SDLP conference in the Crowne Plaza today, the future is not one about flag, emblems or anthems, but about where their children will grow up.
“I’ve got two kids – one’s seven and one’s 10. Do I want a situation in probably 10, 15 years time where my eldest son Tom, says: ‘Do you know what, Mummy? I’m away to Australia. There’s nothing here for me’,” says Devlin.
Raised in a Protestant community in east Belfast, mother of two Becca Harper made the unusual journey to joining the SDLP following her dealings with the party after she had launched a campaign for better childcare.
“I’m 36. I’m one of those peace babies they talk about,” she says.
“I am very privileged to grow up in Northern Ireland. I’m very proud to be from Belfast. I love Northern Ireland. I just want to see a better Northern Ireland, a new Ireland.”
Harper, who now works on the SDLP’s headquarters staff, says: “We need to make this place work.
“Before I know it, my kids will be thinking about leaving Northern Ireland if things stay the way they are and I don’t want them to face that.”
