This week’s Inside Politics podcast with Hugh Linehan explores what a united Ireland would actually involve, Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole and Belfast Telegraph journalist Sam McBride have written a new book that addresses the case both for and against Irish unity.
The structure of the book is unusual. Each journalist writes two long chapters: one arguing for unity, and one arguing against. O’Toole says the aim is to “give people a sense of what a decent argument looks like”. Too often, he suggests, the subject becomes a referendum about identity rather than a discussion of consequences. McBride agrees, saying most people “don’t get beyond the binary of are you for or against it” even though “none of us know what it would mean”.
Both authors draw on recent research from ARINS (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South, which has tracked public attitudes and mapped legal and economic questions arising from constitutional change. That research shows strong public support south of the Border for unity in the abstract but far less willingness to contemplate the costs or compromises required. O’Toole notes that in the South, attachment to unity is often like attachment to the Irish language: “We say we want it, but we won’t actually do anything about it.”
The book argues that the key challenge is preparation. Brexit demonstrated the dangers of calling a referendum without answers to the difficult practical questions. As O’Toole puts it, “We’re not going to get it right if it’s ill-prepared… if it’s a 50 percent plus one with a lot of emotion and probably a lot of misinformation in a campaign.”
Those practical questions run through the book: healthcare integration, welfare harmonisation, education, taxation and policing. McBride stresses the range of possible constitutional models. Northern Ireland could remain semi-autonomous within a united Ireland; or the island could adopt a more federal structure. “We don’t even know the most basic elements of this,” he says.
O’Toole points out that the Belfast Agreement guarantees a permanent right to British identity in Northern Ireland. “Britishness does not go away,” he says, and any new state must actively recognise it. McBride adds that unionists “are not a monolith”; some are curious about the benefits of a united Ireland, while others fear absorption into a country that has not fully understood them.
Security also features in the conversation. McBride highlights the danger of assuming violence could not return: “The state has to have a monopoly on violence. If they don’t, you will get sectarian inter-communal conflict.”
Both authors believe that change may bring opportunities as well as risks. Ireland has already become, in O’Toole’s words, “one of the great success stories of the contemporary world”. He argues that unity could provide the political momentum needed to fix problems that already exist in the Republic.
Their conclusion is that everyone on the island will soon need to make an informed choice. And that requires informed understanding, not simplistic assumptions.
For and Against a United Ireland is published by the Royal Irish Academy.
