For possibly the first time, both parts of Ireland are now ready for re-unification

I listened carefully to what the editor of the News Letter said on the RTE 6pm TV news last evening (Thursday September 22) about the latest census figures in Northern Ireland, which reveal that Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time. It is, as he said, an important day.

My view is that if it comes to a referendum most Catholics/people from a nationalist background in Northern Ireland will vote for re-unification.

The opportunity to bring to an end something that began in 1169 will be a momentous occasion and will trump any sense of a Northern Ireland identity for nationalists/Catholics.

I’m not sure that unionists fully understand that. Likewise, people in the Republic don’t always appreciate (because they have never thought about it) that for Northern nationalists 1922 ‘never happened’.

There is one category of Catholic/nationalist voter who might vote against re-unification, ie, those who are opposed to abortion, same sex marriage, married priests, etc. How numerous they are I don’t know but their numbers are not insignificant.

On balance, however. I believe most of them would probably also vote for re-unification.

The level of non-practising Catholics is a significant development within Catholicism but I don’t think it would affect the outcome of a referendum.

There is the possibility of a schism in the Catholic Church (the church has in reality divided but both sides want to hold on to the Vatican, red hats, etc.), which would be a second Reformation.

Whether that would affect the outcome of a referendum, North and South, I don’t know. My instinct is that it wouldn’t, but I’ll park that one unless and until a formal schism occurs.

How immigrants would vote (eg, people from other EU countries) I don’t know. My instinct is that Catholics (eg. Poles) would vote for the-unification whereas non-Catholics (say Nordics, Estonians) would vote against. However, the News Letter would know more about that than me.

I’m conscious that Ulster was always semi-detached from the rest of Ireland, long before 1169.

That partly explains why at least some people in Northern Ireland identify as Northern Irish but the experience of partition will have changed that. Both parts of Ireland are, in many ways, already coming together, possibly for the first time. The country is ready or almost ready for re-unification and, to be honest, it is time.

A lot of work is going on in the background about what form re-unification should take.

It is being portrayed as attempting to avoid a Brexit-style disaster but, in reality, vested interests are trying to put the cart before the horse, eg, reserving seats in the Cabinet for unionists, something which would be corporatist and anti-democratic.

There is also talk of ‘reaching out’ to unionists, which annoys me almost as much as it probably annoys unionists. The likelihood is that nationalists would prevail (by themselves) following which a constitutional convention should be convened to decide on the wording of the constitution and what the political structure of the new state should be.

EU membership would be a factor both in the referendums, North and South, but the sense of national identity (and the wish to end something that began in 1169) is stronger than EU membership, which is more of a Dublin 4 thing than anything else.

Ireland will continue to exist long after the EU has gone the way of the dodo.

There is always the possibility that the Republic would vote against re-unification. I certainly wouldn’t rule that out but that is our problem.

I believe the outcome (following re-unification) would be broadly peaceful in that most unionists would accept it but I recognise that there would be an ongoing campaign of low-level violence into the future.

The country, including the 26 counties, would have to live with that.

Michael Clarke, Dublin