The Unity Train is coming, and it is time for all to be prepared to board it. That seems the core message of this book, which is the product of interviews with a range of those who have given the issue of Irish unity considerable thought and are broadly supportive of it. It is, veteran investigative journalist Frank Connolly maintains, “no longer a question of whether, but when and how”. That assertion is an indication of how disconcerting this book will be to those who want to resist unity but if Connolly’s main aim is to provoke debate, this book succeeds. Whether it convinces about the inevitability or logistics of unity, however, is another matter. True, the mix of the fallout from Brexit, unionist and Tory incompetence and nationalist confidence have led to numerous assertions about the inevitability of unity, but the recent election results in the North and a succession of surveys and opinion polls do not suggest an overwhelming appetite for it.
There is also considerable vagueness about means and methods and Connolly acknowledges “much more detailed research and debate needs to be carried out to prepare the ground”. The book, which strings together too many lengthy interview transcripts and extracts from newspaper opinion pieces, is something of an echo chamber, but it nonetheless includes many thoughtful and nuanced reflections.
In recent years many republicans have understandably sought to talk up the unity momentum and, as Connolly finds, there are plenty of commentators willing to voice support, but are they still inhabiting a bubble? There is throughout the book an insistence that Brexit and the electoral march of Sinn Féin north and south have “changed the conversation”, but just how deep is that conversation? The president of Sinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald, has repeatedly suggested unity “is being talked about in every town and city in Ireland as a realistic, achievable and necessary future”. But that is wild exaggeration. In her interview for this book, McDonald partly acknowledges that by suggesting “civic society outside of the political bubble has to be fully engaged”. Sinn Féin adviser Stephen McGlade states unionists “are not persuadable until a date is set” and adds “there can be no victories”, words that will seem very hollow to unionists.
All-island economy
At least this book delves deeper into fiscal issues and the potential for an all-island economy (farmers in Northern Ireland exported an extra €1 billion of goods to the Republic in the first 10 months of 2021), and there is is interesting material, too, on climate change with geographer John Sweeney convincingly arguing that a co-ordinated all-island approach is an urgent necessity and that it would be better if the North was subject to EU climate change policy. McDonald argues that the “The EU needs to become a vehicle and persuader for Irish reunification”, but while a united Ireland would be accepted as a full member of the EU, history would suggest that EU leaders will not aggressively push the project.
The experience of the Covid pandemic over the last two years runs through this book as a parallel narrative. Connolly is particularly keen to emphasise that the failure to develop an all-island approach to dealing with Covid led to “debate” about a single health service for the island. It did to some degree, but didn’t it also underline how entrenched partition is? Artist Emma Campbell tells Connolly that for her and her friends “the biggest fear around a united Ireland isn’t a loss of identity but a loss of a national health service”. Public health expert and Belfast native Gabriel Scally, widely quoted here, has been a rock of sense about the ridiculousness of this small island operating two different systems for dealing with the pandemic, but he has also stood out because not many were making the case as forcefully as him. One important theme neglected here is the deep-rootedness of partitionist mindsets in the Republic, relevant not just to the obvious challenge of dealing with the status and place of unionists in a united Ireland, but the historic gulf between the southern and northern nationalist perspectives.
Cultural perspectives
Some of this may have dissipated, but it is still relevant. Actor Adrian Dunbar tells Connolly “Irish unification . . . is in our DNA”. But who is the “our” here? And isn’t disunity also in our DNA? Stephen Rea offers a more challenging and convincing angle: “The waste of energy in maintaining it [partition] could be used for other things”. The cultural perspectives are absorbing, and poet Paula Meehan makes the point that many talented artists “largely managed to see the arts as a borderless zone” during the Troubles and the two arts councils co-operated closely. There were times of fear and tension but also an enduring determination to collaborate. Writer Brian Keenan is interesting on the “cultural malaise” affecting Protestants which he believes is the product of an “inherent sense of precarious belonging”.
The book is highly idealistic, and Connolly’s interviewees helpfully underline what could with much effort, perhaps much more than the book allows, be achieved through integrated health, education and economic systems. But how representative are voices like Glenn Bradley, ethical trade activist and former UUP official? He believes unionist leaders are in denial about the inevitability of unity and that the British government will eventually “say to political unionism: ‘We’re gone in two years, sort this f*cking mess out yourselves’” As Belfast Sinn Féin community activist Seán Murray puts it, “there aren’t many Glenn Bradleys out there”.
As to constitutional issues, and matters of the moment, Cork-born political scientist Brendan O’Leary, a founding member of the Arins project (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South) suggests the DUP’s “biggest lie” is that the NI protocol violates the principle of consent in the Belfast Agreement. The consent principle applies solely to transfer of sovereignty over Northern Ireland; the functions addressed by the protocol are Westminster functions. But O’Leary is also adamant that no coherent unity discussions can happen “unless you know the expected constitutional structure . . . you have to work out the likely constitutional configurations and then discuss the various public policy ones that would follow”.
Some activists, academics and commentators, including the civic nationalists involved in Ireland’s Future, who feature prominently in the book, may be having these discussions, but there is little appetite on the part of the relevant governments to do likewise, suggesting a longer road ahead than most of the contributors to this book might like.
Diarmaid Ferriter is professor of modern Irish history at UCD. His book Between Two Hells: The Irish Civil War will be published in paperback next month by Profile Books
