Interesting, I was unaware that mainstream ROI politicians were making noises about it as well, how does the ordinary wo/man in the street feel about the prospect?
I suspect its one of those issues where romantic ideals and cold pragmatism clash, on economic grounds both NI and the Republic would have problems, but choosing not to unify kind of goes against the tide of history as a whole, considering the opinion of all of the island.
But I think it would be kind of sad if Ireland chose not to reunite when East and West Germany did, despite a very roughly analogous situation in regards to East Germany and its economic problems, as far as I’m aware the concept of ‘Germany’ has existed for a much shorter period of time than that of ‘Ireland’.
Or as my mum was fond of saying, “Ireland was Ireland when England was still a pup, Ireland will still be Ireland when England’s buggered up”.
It would have to very delicately done, but I think if Scotland went independent the powers that be in London would be only to happy to divest themselves of the troublesome province.
Germany, in the sense of The German Nation has existed since the Dark Ages. Divided into many mini-countries by the blind stupidity of the Catholic Church in opposing it’s superior, the Reich, for centuries, Reunited under Bismarck; Split by the fearful Allies after WWII; Now one again, it has always been what it is.
England was united under the Normans since the Early Middle Ages; a little later took on her Irish siblings, then married to Scotland, also unified since that period.
Ireland was just a bunch of squabbling provinces, that never were nor would be united except by order of the English. Then it was crucified by it’s adoration of the Catholic Church, now ended.
My name is well Irish.
It’s probably a bad assumption to think that every No on Brexit would automatically think that unifying Ireland is a better option than remaining in a non-EU linked UK. Similarly, not every vote that swung from Unionist parties necessarily would vote for a ballot proposal to leave. There may well be some that voted other issues thinking that Union wasn’t a major issue but still support Union.
Given that the majority is still pretty small the correlation has to be very high between those two separate issues and willingness to support uniting Ireland. At best they are hints that it’s worth digging deeper on attitudes specifically related to Union.
Measured on a per GDP per capita basis, the Republic of Ireland is still significantly wealthier than Great Britain, and both are much wealthier than NI.
The difference, of course, is that Great Britain is much the largest of the three economies in absolute terms, and can much more easily afford the transfers necessary to maintain Northern Ireland at its current standard of living. Similar payments would be much more burdensome for the Republic. So as long as the UK government is willing to maintain huge direct transfers to NI, the economic case for remaining with in the UK is fairly compelling.
The calculationc changes if, with the normalisation of politics (which still hasn’t happened) Northern Ireland can take its attention off its own quarrels for long enough to start catching up in economic terms with its more productive neighbours, so the need for transfers becomes less compelling, or if British willingness to keep making the transfers starts to weaken.
I’ve often said that if Scotland went, England and Wales should say they should take Northern Ireland with them, since the historic origins of the divide are almost more a Scottish/Irish problem than an English/Irish one. I meant it facetiously originally, but if they both retained EU membership along with the Republic, that would at least not upset the present status quo as much as the possibility of a “hard border”.
