Irish 'dopers (and anyone else of course)....is the reunification of Ireland inevitable?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Was in a discussion a few weeks ago with some of my friends from Ireland (they live in County Cork ) and they were saying that they think the reunification is pretty much inevitable due to demographic shifts (I guess a lot of the really hardcore pro-UK folks that lived in NI moved back to Scotland, Wales or England for better jobs or whatever, and a lot of people from the south (Republic of Ireland) moved into the north in the last few decades. They think that a tipping point will be reached in just a few years or maybe a decade, but that it’s inevitable.

My question is, do you think they are correct? Also, will the UK allow NI to join the Irish Republic, even if a majority of the people there wanted it? I know there was a vote by Scotland to gain independence, but this wouldn’t be independence, it would be joining another country. If we assume these folks are correct, and this shift is inevitable and there is a tipping point where a majority…or even a super-majority…of people in NI want to leave the UK and join the Republic of Ireland, could/would that happen?

2

My suspicion is that it is likely, but not inevitable, and that whether it happens or not is a complex question.

The baseline, 1920 arrangement was the Northern Ireland was carved out specifically for the Protestant Anglo-Irish (these are all the people of English descent who settled in Ireland during the hundreds of years of English suzerainty over the island) and Protestant Irish, and its borders were drawn to guarantee that Catholics could not have a majority in the Northern Ireland Parliament.

However the Catholic population had generally always grown faster than the Protestant population. By current times, the Catholic population is around 40%. The Protestant population has actually declined–although that is actually more because many of them have become non-religious. Additionally many of the demographic assumptions have changed.

In 1950 you can damn well bet that almost everyone in Northern Ireland was either a Protestant or a Catholic, and you can damn well bet that if you were a Catholic, you favored union with Ireland, and a Protestant favored remaining union with the United Kingdom. But in 2020+ things are different. Much of the Catholic influx has actually not been from the ROI, but other EU countries…the so called “A8” countries. Many are from Poland. This means that many Catholics settled in Northern Ireland are no longer cultural / ethnic Irish Catholics, and thus they don’t intrinsically have the same views on the union–some of them actually specifically moved to Northern Ireland because of various economic opportunities there that are seen as being tied to union with the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, and thankfully, the religious divisions (while by no means gone–there are still neighborhood walls that are sadly necessary to prevent violence) that have long defined the conflict have been decreasing. For example there have in recent years actually been Irish Catholics in the Unionist (Unionist means “maintaining Union with the UK”) parties, and the SDLP (the more moderate of the two big Irish Nationalist parties) have had a number of Irish Protestant members. This means that it’s getting much more difficult to guess what way things will go based on religious demography.

All that being said, as mentioned I think eventual reunification is likely, but not guaranteed. One thing that actually kept a lot of Protestants from wanting to reunify with Ireland for example was a perception that the Republic of Ireland is “religiously extremist”, remember that until very recently abortion was banned in nearly all circumstances in the RoI as part of its constitution. That was recently changed.

As to the question of will the UK grant independence–absolutely, they have agreed to do so if it is the democratically expressed will of Northern Ireland. There is virtually no chance they would attempt to block Northern Ireland merging with RoI.

3

Is this your theory, or fact? I’m not aware of such a population shift, and you need to remember that the protestant population of Northern Ireland have lived there for centuries - your phrasing ‘go back to’ would be taken as a great insult.

My question is, do you think they are correct? Also, will the UK allow NI to join the Irish Republic, even if a majority of the people there wanted it? I know there was a vote by Scotland to gain independence, but this wouldn’t be independence, it would be joining another country.

Current polling suggest the status quo hasn’t changed much, although the impacts of Brexit could alter that view. Who Knows? The British Government wouldn’t oppose unification if that’s what the voters said. Of course, a vote in itself would need British Government approval, and that would depend on the Government of the day.

Martin Hyde makes a good point about the reduction in religiosity amongst voters (on both sides) - that may totally alter why people might vote one way or the other, and only the shifting sands of politics and economics will tell us which way.

4

The demographic changes are mostly deaths and births, not the movement of people to or from the UK or Republic. There is no great desire in the UK to keep Northern Ireland - that comes mostly from Irish unionists. There are also mixed feelings in the Republic about unification, and not a little hesitation about integrating hundreds of thousands of new citizens against their will.

5

They would probably - as now - allow citizens to have dual nationality, at least for anyone born before unification. The UK and Ireland already have a ‘special relationship’ when it comes to immigration/nationality/residency. Basically, Irish and British citizens currently have the rights to live, work and vote in either country (and use the ‘home citizen’ channel at border checkpoints such as airports)

6

That makes sense. I wasn’t sure, as I knew they would have let Scotland go independent if they voted for it, but wasn’t sure if this was a similar situation.

Thanks for the post. I use these things as a reality check on stuff I don’t know a lot about. Both of my friends were pretty adamant that this is already happening and that it was inevitable, etc etc, and I don’t know enough about it except to nod along, but wanted to see if I could get another take on it.

Neither…one of my friends told me this was true. I don’t know, personally, as I have only been to Ireland twice and both were decades ago.

7

Ok, so I found a video on this on YouTube (from TLDR News…not going to link to it, and I don’t know that much about this channel as I’m not subscribed, but I’ve seen a few of their videos and they aren’t bad). They have a graph at the beginning that supposedly shows the changing sentiment of those polled in Northern Ireland for reunification over time (it tracks those for staying in the UK verse those who want to reunify with the Republic of Ireland). It starts off in 2012, where it’s below 25% (and above 60% for staying in the UK) and tracks to a year or so ago. Today, according to the graph, it seems to be balanced with both sides around 40% (which presumably means 20% either don’t know or don’t care).

The main case the narrator seems to be making is that Brexit was the turning point, and I guess the fact that Great Britain has stopped a lot of trade with Northern Ireland because it’s too difficult, so the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have become much closer as trade partners and that a lot of the links back to GB have been broken.

That said, he is saying that such polls are overhyped, and that right now there isn’t any way the folks in NI would vote for reunification…in fact, the political parties who most want reunification said (according to the video) that they haven’t even put this to a vote and don’t even plan to in the foreseeable future. The time just isn’t right, not by a long shot.

There was an interesting bit about religion that coincided with what Martin was saying above.

8

I wonder if any push for reunification will be driven by a desire to stay in the EU. Isn’t that driving some of the interest in Scottish independence?

9

That is the little bit I’ve heard on it. NI might leave the UK to return to the EU.

Did they iron out the border issues caused by Brexit, I think they did but honestly didn’t keep up on the issue.

10

It would be ironic if Brexit results in the breakup of the UK.

11

Especially after having been pushed by the Conservative and Unionist Party of the United Kingdom.

12

Not really, a huge, probably dominant, proportion of Northern Irish protestants trace their ancestry back to settlers who came from Scotland rather than England. There are more Presbyterians in Northern Ireland than Anglicans (Church of Ireland) and Methodists put together.

I’ll also concur with the point that the OP’s Cork friends are misinformed about large numbers of NI protestants moving to Great Britain.

13

The Anglo-Irish are estimated at around 21% of Northern Ireland’s 1.9m population, at around 410,000 this actually is more than the 345,000 who identify as “Ulster-Scots / Presbyterians.” Albeit as with many things involving Northern Island demography is complex and how people identify will vary based on what options you give them in questionnaires.

If you give them the choice of identifying as: British, Irish, Northern Irish, “English, Scottish and Welsh” (as a combined category), and “Other”, 48.4% will answer British, 28.4% Irish, 29.4% Northern Irish 1.6% “English, Scottish and Welsh” and 3.4% Other. But given that we know around 750,000 of the Northern Ireland population also separately identifies as being either Anglo-Irish or Ulster Scot, it stands to reason a large portion of those who will select “British” or “Northern Irish” are probably Anglo-Irish and Ulster Scot, I would imagine fewer that identify as “Irish” would correspond with those groups (but I imagine some would.)

15

As a reality check it is worth looking at how much religious integration there is in Northern Ireland. Last time I looked it was still quite segregated by religion. Where you live, your job, your first name, your family name, the school you went to. The latter case is quite telling, the education system is deeply segregated. However, I have been told that there some towns that are known as places where there mixed marriages between Catholic and Protestant Irish. So maybe in a generation or two, it may not matter.

The culture in the Republic of Ireland has become very progressive over the past couple of decades, Northern Ireland lags behind in comparision.

If a few lads from Cork decided to visit the North, they would very soon be made aware of exactly where and where they are not welcome. All the people look the same but the divisions are very deep. The most obvious signs are the flags and murals and the big walls that divide the rough housing projects.

No politician in their right mind would touch the issue of unification with a barge pole. Anything to do with the delicate constutional settlement in between the UK and Ireland over NI is treat with a fear that it could go all go horribly wrong and Brexit has increased those worries. But then the UK is also very divided about the unholy mess Brexit has caused and the arrangements in NI are a hot topic. I can see the current UK government making a lot of mistakes over the border issue. It is a political minefield and the power sharing Northern Ireland assembly has not functioned for some years. The consititutional arrangements are quite weak.

Could it be that there is a lack of awareness of NI politics in Cork. To be fair, there is not much awareness in the rest of the UK either. But we all know how bad it has been in the past and no-one wants those Troubles back again. Politicians in the Republic and the UK have lots of other priorities they want to deal with and stirring up NI with talk or Reunification is fringe politics it would only stir up a whole host of problems that they would prefer to avoid.

Referendums may seem to be grand democratic processes, but the way they are practiced in the UK has been quite poor. They are quite keen on them in Ireland because they have made them work with their constitution. That is certainly not the case in the UK where the 48/52 Brexit vote resulted in a complete shambles. A vote on Unification would cause a very big problem for both the Republic and the UK. The result would not be accepted by a significant part of the population who would make their feelings known very forcefully. Nothing good would come of it.

Every now and then the papers stir up this story after some survey and the Irish republican party Sinn Fein raise the question from time to time. But that, I think, is political posturing. No-one actually wants to deal with consequences if it means the troubles of the past were visited the Republic. Why would the voters in the republic want a lot of very angry protestant radical political parties with a history of violence from the North disturb and disrupt their politics? It would be a poison chalice, a nightmare.

Better to let sleeping dogs lie?

16

I strongly suspect that most of the British/English government would love to reunify Ireland. It’s been nothing but a headache since 1921.

It may well happen one day, but not in my lifetime - not as long as the ‘hard’ men in the North want to stay British. As I understand it, the Protestant hardliners like the UVF have pretty much morphed into criminal gangs which use the Robin Hood effect, and have no interest whatsoever in a peaceful transition.

17

From the data I see, the number of inflows to Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland seems to be holding relatively steady at about 1500 (give or take) per year for the past 10 years. Take that for whatever it’s worth.

18

The Belfast Agreement (1998) sets out the “principle of consent” in some detail:

[quote]ARTICLE 1
The two Governments:
(i) recognise the legitimacy of whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people
of Northern Ireland with regard to its status, whether they prefer to continue to support the
Union with Great Britain or a sovereign united Ireland;
(ii) recognise that it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the
two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of selfdetermination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to
bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish, accepting that this right must be achieved
and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of
Northern Ireland;
(iii) acknowledge that while a substantial section of the people in Northern Ireland share the
legitimate wish of a majority of the people of the island of Ireland for a united Ireland, the
present wish of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, freely exercised and legitimate, is
to maintain the Union and accordingly, that Northern Ireland’s status as part of the United
Kingdom reflects and relies upon that wish; and that it would be wrong to make any change in
the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent of a majority of its people;
(iv) affirm that, if in the future, the people of the island of Ireland exercise their right of self-determination on the basis set out in sections (i) and (ii) above to bring about a united Ireland,
it will be a binding obligation on both Governments to introduce and support in their respective
Parliaments legislation to give effect to that wish; [/quote]

19

Unfortunately not. The issues associated with the status of Northern Ireland post-Brexit, which were to have been dealt with under the Northern Ireland protocol, are a source of significant friction between the UK and EU right now.

The Northern Ireland protocol places NI in a unique and enviable position - it was to remain within both the UK’s and also the EU’s single market. However not everyone in NI is happy with the implementation and they are setting buses on fire in protest.