By Joel Nugent
Edited by Piers Marchant
The past few years have shown unprecedented momentum in favour of a united Ireland, but what does all of it mean, and how likely is it that Ireland will at long last be united?
2021 marked the hundredth year of the creation of the state of Northern Ireland. Created at the end of the Irish war of Independence, the state of Northern Ireland was intended by design to include only the counties of Ireland where a majority of the population were Protestants, who were significantly more likely to be unionists, meaning they wanted Ireland to remain in the UK. This was so Northern Ireland would have a permanent unionist majority and, in a sense, never have its position in the United Kingdom questioned. However, changing demographics interrupted this idea, and the longer the state of Northern Ireland existed the more Catholic its population became. Northern Ireland was designed to be a Protestant state, and so the growing number of Catholics was looked on with concern by unionists. Catholics complained of systemic discrimination against them in terms of housing, policing, and political representation. This further ignited the nationalist sympathies of the Catholic population, as many of them wished for a united Ireland. This led to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement, the rise of John Hume and the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), and by the end of the 1960s Northern Ireland was in a quasi-civil war, with the creation of paramilitary groups such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Volunteer Force and the resurgence of radical political parties such as Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party.
However, in the late 1990s this period of violence began to end with the ratification of the Good Friday Agreement in 1999. ‘The Troubles’ as the conflict had become known were now over and the state of Northern Ireland had been restructured to put Catholic and Protestant communities on more equal footing as well as giving those in the Republic a say in the future of Northern Ireland. Overtime demographic changes meant that support for a united Ireland gradually increased, however real momentum started to pick up in 2016. This was when the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU, even though 55% of the population of Northern Ireland had voted to remain.
One can also look at this year as the beginning of Sinn Féin’s dominance over the SDLP in Northern Ireland, as well as their re-emergence on the national stage in the Republic. Over time they had successfully rebranded themselves from being the political wing of the IRA to being a left-wing populist and democratic socialist political party. Many left-wing voters in the Republic of Ireland felt betrayed by the Irish Labour Party’s coalition government with Fine Gael and the continuation of austerity programs and turned to Sinn Féin in the 2016 Irish general election who became the third largest party and elected 23 TDs to the Dáil (Irish parliament) compared to their previous 14. Then in 2017 Sinn Féin won 7 of the 18 Northern Irish MPs in the United Kingdom general election, an increase of 3. Sinn Féin, to everyone’s surprise including their own, would go onto score the most first preference votes and the second highest number of seats in the 2020 Irish general election and have been consistently leading the polls by large margins in the Republic of Ireland since 2021. In 2022 Sinn Féin for the first time in History received the greatest number of seats and votes in Northern Ireland’s devolved government. This is significant as Sinn Féin are easily the most Nationalistic party on the island of Ireland, and Sinn Féin leader Mary-Lou MacDonald would like to implement a referendum on unity at some point in the next decade. Their rise across the island shows that there is a growing appetite for unification.
Another reason that many in Northern Ireland feel so disillusioned with the United Kingdom is that many of the unionist parties, the biggest of which being the Democratic Unionist Party, seem extremely archaic, and influenced by strong religious fundamentalist ideas, with party leaders endorsing creationism and engaging in homophobic and racist rhetoric. This has led to a decrease in support for unionist parties as younger people turn to more socially and economically progressive parties like Sinn Féin or Alliance (a party affiliated with the Liberal Democrats that does not endorse either unionism or nationalism, it is currently the third largest party in the north.)
Could this lead to a united Ireland sooner rather than later? The constitutional process for this was laid out in the Good Friday Agreement, which was the historic framework for peace in Northern Ireland. At any point a referendum on Irish unity can be held, but both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland will both have to pass a referendum for Irish unity to take place. Aside from Sinn Féin’s popularity in the Republic, polls show that support for Irish unity is consistent and high. At the end of last year, the Irish Times published a poll in which 62% of respondents in the Republic said they favoured unity, with only 16% opposing. So, with a referendum on unity almost certain to pass in the Republic of Ireland, where does this leave the north? Well, going by the most recent polls, it’s close. A poll conducted in August by LucidTalk suggests 41% in the North are in favour of unity, with 48% opposed. However, when the question was asked again with the caveat of taking place in 15-20 years, 52% of respondents said they would favour unity, with a lead of 8% over those who would oppose it, suggesting that momentum in favour of unity is building.
All this points to a rising sense of Nationalism in Ireland, with Sinn Féin ascendant, support for unionist parties declining, and support for Irish unity climbing, it seems to be that the ‘inbuilt unionist majority’ of which the state of Northern Ireland was created has broken, and it could very well be the case that a united Ireland will occur within our lifetimes.