Pat Leahy: A new united Ireland will have to be a bit more British than the current Republic

Holidaying in Kerry every childhood July – the sun always shone, the sea was blue, etc – you’d notice the Northern reg cars appearing in greater numbers as the month unfolded. You’d hear the accents on the beach and in the water – “ach, boys, but that’s cold!”; Catholics down South to escape the Twelfth.

A long way to come, maybe, but worth it to escape the visible and audible sectarianism, the air of menace, the threat of violence. No television in our house, but the newspapers were full of it: Drumcree, the Ormeau Road, Drumcree again and forever, it seemed.

Like much else in Northern Ireland, it’s different now. In the wider story of how the conflict was ended, the Parades Commission has been its own small miracle. The marching season is no longer the season of riots, petrol bombs, violence and death. The North has learned – is learning – to manage its sectarian demons, if not eliminate them. That will apparently take a bit longer.

Because there’s still a good bit of it about. Some parades and 11th night bonfires this week have an air of a community festival and cultural celebration about them; not all do, though. And it would be going a bit far to call them inclusive. Tricolours, pictures of Leo Varadkar, Michelle O’Neill and other nationalist politicians were burned. This may be denounced by unionist politicians and Orange Order leaders nowadays, but it still happens every year. Yeah, well, say loyalists. What about the Sinn Féin commemorations of IRA volunteers who murdered their kinsfolk?

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A suggestion this week by Green TD Patrick Costello that the Twelfth be made a public holiday in the Republic was monstered by many (though not all) of the callers on Monday’s Liveline. In these pages, Kathy Sheridan wasn’t buying it either. You can imagine the reaction on social media.

Last year’s Irish Times/ARINS research project found that proposed changes to the national flag and the national anthem would make nearly half of all voters in the South less likely to vote for a united Ireland

The question of a new united Ireland that is, in order to reflect and accommodate the allegiances of Northern Ireland’s unionist/loyalist community, a bit more British than the current Republic is, you might think, an important part of any discussion about that subject. But it is one that many enthusiasts for national reunification with the fourth green field seem unwilling to contemplate. Last year’s Irish Times/ARINS research project found that proposed changes to the national flag and the national anthem would make nearly half of all voters in the South less likely to vote for a united Ireland. A larger number of Southerners are allergic to the suggestion of rejoining the Commonwealth.

Further research later this year for The Irish Times and ARINS will probe these questions more deeply, but let’s remember that this stuff is the easy bit. If southerners remain unwilling to change the symbols and emblems in a new united Ireland, you’d wonder what chance of more substantial political and economic changes – such as paying for it – to pave the way for the sort of united Ireland that wouldn’t be rejected out of hand by the lads gathering around the bonfires on the 11th. Or does that even matter to the united Irelanders?

Because the first step in any sort of unification project is to establish a better understanding between North and South – and that means facing up to the differences.

‘Nordies and Mexicans’

Exploring the differences between North and South was the theme of a discussion hosted by ARINS at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin this week, entitled “Nordies and Mexicans” – the Mexicans in this formulation being those of us who live south of the border. The lively and informative session bore testament to the progress in Northern Ireland in the 25 years since the Belfast Agreement – and to the closer ties between the two parts of the island, facilitated by open borders, a relaxed security situation and a growing open-mindedness towards the other in both places.

But it also related the extent of the continuing differences between North and South – differences, one participant remarked, that had been exacerbated by Brexit, but also by the rapid and continuing economic development in the South. In other words, the richer the South has become, the more different it has become – in that respect anyway – to the North.

It’s a rule, apparently, that no political progress can be achieved during the marching season, so the question that has hung in the air since earlier this year – will the DUP rejoin the powersharing institutions or not?

Speakers were frank about what is probably the biggest enduring difference: the North remains a politically and culturally divided society. That is not as all-pervasive as it once was, but it still makes it very different from the South. The largely segregated education system teaches children there are two societies there, one speaker noted. “And there are two societies there. Coming from the South, it’s really difficult to get your head around.” And yet the Mexicans who had moved North of the border were unanimous: they love it there.

The progress achieved in the North has been done by politics, and politics there is at one of its periodic impasses. It’s a rule, apparently, that no political progress can be achieved during the marching season, so the question that has hung in the air since earlier this year – will the DUP rejoin the powersharing institutions or not? – remains unresolved months later.

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The British view – that Jeffrey Donaldson has nowhere else to go, so he will go back to Stormont – is generally (if less confidently) shared in Dublin, but with caveats and questions. Is he strong enough in the party? Can he overcome the hardliners at Westminster? Will his voters continue to endorse staying out, or do they want Stormont back?

Autumn is decision time. London will turn the screw financially – though that could backfire as local politicians recoil from the prospect of facing the difficult spending decisions that are inevitable for whoever governs Northern Ireland. In the longer term, though, unionism will have to deal with the world as it is. What is the alternative? More than ever, leadership is required.