Sir, – I am sure I'm not the only one who has never heard of the discussion group "Ireland's Future". Even more surprising is the large number of "deeply concerned" people (over a thousand) who signed a letter displayed in an advertisement in The Irish Times ("A new Ireland? 1,000 leading people call on Varadkar to lead change", News, November 4th).
I was pleased to see that none of the signatories to the letter have a direct connection to any of the political parties. But what makes the writers so sure that “discussion about reunification of Ireland has moved centre stage”?
Apart from nationalist parties in Northern Ireland and Sinn Féin in the Republic, reunification is of little consequence in the face of an upcoming Brexit.
Shouldn’t the deep concern the members express in the letter be for the thousands of hardworking people on both sides of a currently seamless Border who will suffer greatly from loss of employment and opportunity into the future?
There is no connection whatever between Brexit and a united Ireland. As the stand-off between the majority nationalist party and the majority unionist party in Northern Ireland clearly shows, real unity is a long way off. The colour or design of a flag will have little bearing on how we, as free Europeans, conduct our affairs for the betterment of the country in which we live.
I think the great majority of people, whether they were born Catholic or Protestant, nationalist or unionist, in Belfast or Dublin, would have little time for those who seem to spend their lives looking for a solution to problems that they themselves helped create, be it through ignorance, misinformation, or the embellishment of a “glorious” past. – Yours, etc,
NIALL GINTY,
Killester,
Dublin 5.