Since 2022, the annual ARINS/Irish Times surveys have asked representative samples of the public in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland what they think about key aspects of the debate about possible Irish unification.
They have been asked whether they think referendums should be held, and, if so, when. And, in that event, they have been asked how they would vote: for the maintenance of the Union or for Irish unity, “don’t know”, or “would not vote”.
The principle of holding referendums
In our latest survey from 2024, a majority of people on both sides of the border continue to favour referendums being held at some point.
In the South, 79 per cent of people think there should be a referendum, while 10 per cent are opposed. These responses have been stable over time.
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The vast majority of Northern Catholics (81 per cent) continue to support holding a referendum, with just 6 per cent opposed. These results too are very similar to those reported last year.
Among Northern Protestants, however, there has been a notable shift in the balance of opinion: 44 per cent are now in favour of holding a referendum (up from 39 per cent in 2022), 37 per cent are opposed (down from 47 per cent) and 20 per cent say they “don’t know” (up from 14 per cent).
In the surveys, respondents were also asked when, if ever, referendums should be held. Among Southerners and Northern Catholics, most favour holding referendums within the next 10 years (78 per cent and 79 per cent respectively). While these figures are very similar to those reported last year, there has been a decline in those favouring imminent referendums.
Among Southerners, 57 per cent of people think that referendums should be held within the next five years (down from 63 per cent in 2023), along with 55 per cent of Northern Catholics (down from 62 per cent).
Only a minority of Northern Protestants favour referendums being held at any point within a decade, but the proportion was slightly higher in 2024 (44 per cent) than in previous years (42 per cent in both 2022 and 2023).
Voting intentions in referendums
In the South, there remains considerable stability in how people say they would vote in a referendum. A unity vote would likely pass in the South by a ratio of four to one.
Over the last three years, about two-thirds of Southerners respond that they would vote in favour of unification (64 per cent in 2024) and one in six affirm they would vote for Northern Ireland to remain in the UK (17 per cent in 2024). One in eight indicate they “don’t know” how they would vote (13 per cent in 2024). The remainder declare that they would not vote (6 per cent in 2024).
In Northern Ireland, however, there have been notable changes in voting intentions in a future referendum.
In 2022 the ARINS/Irish Times survey found 27 per cent in favour of unity in the North. In 2023 the figure was 30 per cent. In our latest 2024 survey 34 per cent indicate support for unity.
These are just three data points, but they suggest an increasing trend of support.
Consider the margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The increase between the 2022 estimate and the 2024 estimate is statistically significant.
As shown in the graph, the estimate of 27 per cent favouring unity in 2022 has confidence intervals (the range of reliability) of between 24 per cent and 30 per cent. By contrast, the 2024 estimate is 34 per cent, with the confidence intervals being between 31 per cent and 37 per cent.
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The percentage of respondents indicating support for the Union is also lower in 2024 (48 per cent) than it was in 2022 (50 per cent).
Since 2022, in the ARINS/Irish Times surveys there has been a marked increase in the proportion of Northern Catholics who affirm that they would vote for unification (up from 55 per cent to 63 per cent) and a decrease in the proportion responding that they “don’t know” (down from 21 per cent to 16 per cent).
Among Northern Protestants, more modest changes have occurred between 2022 and 2024. They continue to be overwhelmingly unionist: almost 12 times as many affirm that they would vote for Northern Ireland to remain in the UK (82 per cent) rather than to unify with the Republic of Ireland (7 per cent). They are also somewhat less likely to be undecided (down from 13 per cent to 9 per cent).
We also asked respondents if referendums were held how they would react to the two possible results.
When asked to consider an Irish unity outcome, an interesting trend appears to be developing among Protestants in Northern Ireland.
Perhaps our most notable finding in our three years of surveys so far is an average annual increase in the pro-unity position in Northern Ireland of three-and-a-half percentage points
In the first ARINS/Irish Times survey in 2022, one in three (32 per cent) of Northern Protestants indicated that they would find an Irish unification outcome “almost impossible to accept”. That response declined to just under one in four (23 per cent) in 2023.
The latest survey from 2024 shows a further decline. One in five (20 per cent) of Northern Protestants now say they would find referendum outcomes in favour of Irish unification almost impossible to accept. A fall from one third to one fifth over three years is significant by anyone’s reckoning.
For Northern Protestants, the most common reaction to a win for Irish unity in a referendum is to respond that they “would not be happy but could live with it” (48 per cent).
But an increasing number say they would react positively rather than begrudgingly. In 2024, nearly three in 10 Protestants in Northern Ireland (29 per cent) declared that they would “happily accept” referendums endorsing Irish unity.
The continued salience of the debate about Northern Ireland’s future status, and the repercussion of the Brexit controversies, have perhaps made the possibility of Irish unification less abstract, and possibly that has reduced Northern Protestants’ fears of change, and contributed to their expression of greater consent were they to lose a future referendum.
It is also possible, however, that some of them are more confident of winning a referendum in favour of the Union and are therefore less worried about losing.
Despite the restoration of powersharing government in Northern Ireland in early 2024, what is emphatically clear is that alternatives to the status quo are still being contemplated. And the alternative of Irish unity is steadily becoming less intensely unacceptable for some and more acceptable for others.
Overall, perhaps our most notable finding in our three years of surveys so far is an average annual increase in the pro-unity position in Northern Ireland of three-and-a-half percentage points, and a two-percentage point decline of support for the Union over the same period.
If this pattern were to continue over the next few years, then the competition between the Union and Irish unity would be neck and neck by 2027; and, on the same extrapolation, the pro-unity side would be four points ahead in 2028.
Extrapolating from just three years of data, however, must be accompanied with major caveats. A linear trend may not be the most plausible deduction. We must await the next rounds of the surveys to see whether trendless fluctuation describes the story better.
It is also possible that the apparent pro-unity trend may alter its pace, downward or upward. Perhaps the most important trend of all will be whether the proportion of “don’t knows” continues to fall in future surveys as it has over the three held so far.
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