History suggests Mary Lou McDonald’s comments on unity are wildly exaggerated

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald made much reference to history this week. In response to the DUP’s decision to resume its place in the Northern Ireland Assembly, McDonald suggested a Sinn Féin First Minister amounts to a previous era being “consigned to the pages of the history books”. She also referred to “the historical turning of the wheel” in the context of Sinn Féin’s electoral successes, and insisted that Irish unity “as a matter of fact, in historical terms” is “within touching distance”.

These are not assertions designed to ensure a cosy resumption of powersharing, though the ending of the DUP’s two-year sulk hardly merits honey words. They also reflect the scale of the alteration in the balance of power in Northern Ireland, but the comments about unity are wildly exaggerated. It is far too convenient to talk of consigning to history.

Historian Charles Townshend, author of the 2021 book The Partition: Ireland Divided, 1885-1925, concluded his detailed study by suggesting “the fundamental attitudes which produced partition are still in play a century later”.

There is little in Northern Ireland that is consigned to history; indeed, quite the opposite. The notion of being within “touching distance” of unity also jars with some of the main findings of the two-year-long ARINS project examining attitudes to potential unity. This suggests that while two thirds in the Republic support unification, half of those in the North do not and that much effort is required across a whole range of areas to prepare for different possible forms of unity.

Themes in McGahern’s That They May Face The Rising Sun have never been more relevant

---

Ramping up home building isn’t impossible - we’ve done it before

---

United Ireland: money should not be the deciding factor but nor should it be ignored

---

How do you explain to a dying child from Gaza that this is within the accepted limits of Israeli aggression?

---

One hundred years ago, many nationalists thought they were within touching distance of unity with the convening of the Boundary Commission, catered for under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Those opposed to partition hoped it would recommend changes to the Border that would render Northern Ireland inoperable.

In the aftermath of the Boundary Commission embarrassment, successive governments seemed to prefer to return to the approach Kevin O’Shiel had recommended during the Civil War: what he called a ‘policy of peaceful do nothingness’

Omagh-born Kevin O’Shiel, the head of the Free State’s North-Eastern Boundary Bureau, which was preparing information for the commission, attempted to spread optimism about the commission’s potential by stressing the value of “the organised force of public opinion”. O’Shiel believed some form of unity was “within the grasp” of the Cumann na nGaedheal government, but the commission took a very different view, effectively ignoring O’Shiel’s work and interpreting the deliberately vague wording of the articles relating to the Boundary Commission in a very different way than nationalists who believed they should lead to plebiscites No such votes took place. After the commission’s report (which recommended far less alteration to the border than desired by nationalists) was suppressed, Northern Ireland prime minister James Craig accused the Southern government of “living in a fool’s paradise”.

In the Seanad in 1924, WB Yeats suggested an alternative path to unity. It would be “won in the end... not because we fight... but because we govern this country well”. In the aftermath of the Boundary Commission embarrassment, however, successive governments seemed to prefer to return to the approach O’Shiel had recommended during the Civil War: what he called a “policy of peaceful do nothingness”.

[ Northern Protestants pessimistic on benefits of Irish unity ]

Of course, the political situation is entirely different now, given Sinn Féin’s strength North and South, and unionists’ failure to face that will surely be counterproductive. The strategy to bolster unionism advocated by Doug Beattie as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party is to make a success of governing Northern Ireland. Whether the DUP’s return to Stormont is a tacit acceptance of that remains to be seen.

The vagueness of the Boundary Commission clauses of 1921 are somewhat mirrored in the 1998 Belfast Agreement in relation to how a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland might assess if “it appears likely... that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the UK”.

Brendan O’Leary... concluded there can be no successful unity unless it is a ‘multiparty project... would it were done, then best it was done well’ and ‘not quickly’

How is that measured and how is “likely” to be interpreted?

And then there are the possible forms of unity. Some scholars, including political scientist Brendan O’Leary in Making Sense of a United Ireland (2022) have looked precisely at those logistics. O’Leary is also involved in the ARINS project and concluded there can be no successful unity unless it is a “multiparty project... would it were done, then best it was done well” and “not quickly”.

[ Stormont now has no plausible excuse for failure. That doesn't mean failure is impossible ]

The forms unity might take cannot remain abstract or academic questions, especially given the preponderance of those in the “don’t know” camp. In Susan McKay’s book Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground (2021), Sarah Laverty in Ballymoney, from a unionist background, told McKay that in advance of any unity poll, “I would have a hundred questions, literally a hundred questions, which I would put to both sides”. That is hardly unreasonable, and as a new phase of Northern politics dawns, those on both sides of the unity argument need to find answers that go beyond sloganeering and are steeped in historical awareness.