United Nation: The case for integrating Ireland

INTRODUCTION

It is no longer a question of whether, but when and how Ireland and its people will be united. Since the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement (GFA) of 1998, the momentum towards Irish unity has intensified, propelled most dramatically in recent years by the departure of Britain from the EU. It has also been driven by economic and social progress in the South and by political and demographic trends in the North.

The challenges posed by the process of uniting two societies on the island – both with different traditions and diverse communities, contrasting health and education systems, and dual economies – are immense. They are, however, not insurmountable, and the benefits of reunification, as illustrated by the experience when divided countries have come together in other parts of the world, can be hugely rewarding.

The GFA, supported by a clear majority of people in both parts of the island, is a negotiated settlement underpinned in Irish, British and international law, which ensures that national reunification can only be achieved with the consent of a majority of people in the North. That commitment is balanced by an equally significant guarantee that the Irish people, North and South, can vote for a united Ireland in binding referendums. The decision to call a referendum will be made by the British government on the recommendation of its secretary of state for Northern Ireland when he or she considers that there is a real possibility that a simple majority of people in the North would support a proposal for Irish unity.

With the GFA approaching its 25th anniversary in 2023, the public debate on the timing of a referendum is well underway. Discussions on how to prepare for the outcome of a decision by voters, North and South, in favour of reunification have also commenced. For several years, detailed deliberations on the constitutional future of Ireland in the wake of a positive vote for unity have been taking place among academics, in research institutes and universities, and, increasingly, in media and political circles on the island and abroad.

At the centre of these discussions is the key question of accommodating in a unified Ireland, the large numbers of people in the North who identify as British and unionist. By definition, these people oppose the breaking of the link with the UK and its political, legal and cultural institutions and traditions.

In the 2016 UK Brexit referendum, 56 per cent of those who voted in Northern Ireland (including a considerable number of those who had previously supported unionist parties) expressed their wish to remain in the EU; while across the rest of Britain, the majority of those who voted chose to leave. As protracted negotiations on future trade and other arrangements continued between the British government and the EU on the terms of their separation, the numbers of those in NI wishing to retain EU citizenship further increased, according to an opinion poll by The Detail news website in February 2020, eight months before the EU–UK Withdrawal Agreement was made.

The impact and disruption of Brexit on business, trade, farming, international travel and other aspects of daily life in the North became apparent following the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement in the first weeks of 2021, and the concerns about the long-term benefits, or otherwise, of the UK decision to leave the EU continued to grow.

An opinion poll by LucidTalk, published in the Sunday Times in late January 2021, found that 47 per cent of respondents in Northern Ireland wished to remain in the UK, with 42 per cent in favour of a united Ireland and 11 per cent undecided. Some 50.7 per cent said there should be a vote on whether NI remained in the UK at some point before 2025 (Sunday Times, 23 January 2021). A further poll by LucidTalk for BBC Spotlight in April showed that 37 per cent of respondents believed there should be a border poll within five years, with a further 29 per cent supporting a poll ‘at some point after 5 years’ (Spotlight, 20 April 2021).

The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland – commonly known as the Northern Ireland protocol – agreed during the negotiations, allowed the North to remain within the EU free trade and customs areas, but business and farming organisations in particular, expressed real fears about their loss of revenue and income as a consequence of Brexit. Many NI citizens who previously identified exclusively as British applied for Irish passports in order to circumvent potential obstacles to their free movement for work, study and leisure in EU states under the new dispensation.

During April, there were protests in loyalist areas across the North, although these were much smaller than those during the conflict years. There were riots against the police; some vehicles, including a bus, were burnt; and there were attempts by gangs of young men to engage with nationalist youths across the peace line in west Belfast. The protestors raised objections to their partial detachment from Britain under the protocol and to their continued relationship with the EU under the terms of the trade deal. On 1 November 2021, another bus was burnt out in Newtownabbey, just north of Belfast, in protest against the continuing protocol.

Unionist political leaders unsuccessfully called on the British government to override the protocol due to the disruption caused in the early months of 2021 when there was a significant delay and reduction in the importation of, often essential, consumer goods from the UK into the North due to the bureaucratic and other difficulties arising from the Brexit deal.

By September 2021, a substantial increase was recorded in the trade of goods, in both directions between North and South, as manufacturers and other suppliers found new markets for their products and fresh sources of supply on the island. Imports from the North to the South increased by 60 per cent over 2020, while there was a 45 per cent rise in the opposite direction following the disruption to trade with the UK. Two months later, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) told an Oireachtas committee that imports from North to South rose by 90 per cent due to the withdrawal of Britain from the EU. This accounted for 5 per cent of total imports into the South, up from 1.5 per cent in 2015.

Just as Brexit was a catalyst for changing attitudes to a referendum on, and raised the prospects of, a united Ireland, the catastrophic and tragic loss of life and economic disruption wreaked by the coronavirus since it first emerged in early 2020 led to intense public debate in Ireland over the potential benefits of a single health service on the island.

The failure of the authorities in the North and South to develop an all-island response to the crisis was criticised by public health experts as gross negligence, resulting in many unnecessary Covid-related deaths and causing debilitating illness and suffering to tens of thousands of people. By early 2021, the death toll from Covid-19 of some 2,800 in the South and over 2,000 in the North exceeded the number who lost their lives during Troubles. A year later the number of Covid-related deaths was approaching 10,000 across the island, according to the CSO and the equivalent body in the North, the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA).

In addition, the introduction of progressive legislation to permit same-sex marriage and abortion over recent years has marked a change in the perception of the South as a socially-backward state, overly influenced by the hierarchy and teachings of the Catholic Church. The successes of the feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, and wider political and civic society, in the constitutional referendums on both issues built upon the radical departures of the 1970s and 1980s, when legislation to allow for divorce, contraception and homosexuality were first introduced.

By the 1990s, the dominance of the Catholic Church over the reproductive rights of women and the private lives of citizens was already diminished. This was not least because of the disclosures of appalling mistreatment, including sexual and other physical abuse, of children in its care, of women in mother and baby homes and other facilities, and of boys and young men in detention centres over previous decades in the South. Inquiries in the North revealed similar abuse in state and Church-run institutions of both main religions. This contributed to a gradual but significant weakening of Church control over people’s lives; a reduction in the numbers participating in religious services and organisations; and a growing movement towards the secularisation of education, North and South.

These fundamental and ongoing social changes were mirrored by previously unthinkable shifts in political allegiance in the South, with a steady decline in support for the parties that had traditionally dominated electoral politics since the foundation of the state, a trend most evident in the results of the general election in February 2020.

In the North, election results since 2017 have reflected a narrowing of the gap in support for the larger unionist and nationalist parties and a substantial growth in the numbers supporting neither. In elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, to local government and to the Westminster and European parliaments over recent years, the nationalist and other non-unionist vote has equalled and, on occasion, surpassed the combined support for the unionist parties.

As an insight into demographic trends for the overall population of the North, the figures for school, university and other third-level education enrolment suggest a continuing growth in the number of those who identify as Irish/Catholic/nationalist and a corresponding decline of those from the British/Protestant/unionist community. A September 2020 article in the Irish Times noted that ‘The North’s Department of Education figures for the year 2019/2020 show that from nursery up to second level, Catholics made up 50.6 per cent of the schools’

population … while

Protestants made up 32.3 per cent’. The ratio is similar in the enrolments for university and other third-level education.

While demographics are an unreliable indicator of political choice, the 2021 census in the North is expected to confirm this trend, along with an increase in the number of people declaring their nationality as Northern Irish rather than Irish or British.

None of these trends can diminish or deny the prospect that a very large section, and possibly a majority, of people in the North who vote in a forthcoming referendum on Irish unity will reject the proposition and assert their wish to remain part of the UK. However, the economic, political, social and demographic trends post-Brexit, suggest that there is a greater likelihood now, than at any other period since the partition of Ireland, that a majority of people in the North will choose to sever its constitutional ties to the Britain and to join an agreed, unitary state.

In 2017, the EU Council of Ministers agreed that, if the people of Ireland, North and South, endorse a proposal for reunification, the new country will automatically be admitted to full EU membership. In advance of such an exercise in self-determination, as envisaged in the GFA, prospective voters should, at the very least, have an idea of the nature of the future constitutional, political, economic and social arrangements on the island.

In the event of a vote for unity, the large numbers of those who identify as unionist are entitled to certain assurances and guarantees, legally or constitutionally enshrined, which will protect their rights in this new Ireland. This includes their right to hold British and Irish citizenship, as set out in the GFA.

This right was reinforced following a legal action by Derry-born Emma DeSouza, who successfully challenged the insistence by the Home Office that she was a British citizen. DeSouza commenced the action after the Home Office denied an application by her US-born husband, Jake, for a European Economic Area residence card. She argued that, under the terms of the GFA, she was entitled to be recognised as Irish, and so held the same rights as all other Irish citizens – her husband was thus eligible for residency in the North. In May 2020, after five years of legal argument and in a significant climbdown from its earlier position, the British government accepted that all Irish and British citizens of NI will be regarded as EU citizens for immigration/family unification purposes.

Equally, the GFA states that those from both jurisdictions have a right to live, and see their children grow, in a country where all citizens can avail of fair and equal access to housing, health, education and other public services, to equality under the law notwithstanding their gender, race or religious affiliation and to work and live without exploitation or discrimination.

That is what the majority of people on the island decided when they voted, in May 1998, to support the GFA, which asserted that, whatever choice the people make in a referendum, it ‘shall be founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just treatment for the identity, ethos, and aspirations of both communities.’

Since that decision, the population of the South has increased by over 1.4 million, to 5 million people, while in the North it has reached over 1.9 million, according to figures from the CSO and NIRSA respectively. The number of non-Irish nationals living in the South rose to 645,500 by 2020, or just under 13 per cent of the total population and has made for a more diverse, multicultural society.

There are huge challenges ahead for those who want to create a fitting place for these, almost 7 million, people, and in convincing a majority in the North that a united Ireland will be in their best long-term interests. While the trends, as outlined above, suggest movement towards a unitary state in Ireland, there is no agreement as to when the mechanism to achieve this objective, a referendum, should be triggered. Nor is there agreement on what constitutional and political structure, and what sort of society, people will choose in a future border poll.

In the following pages, I examine what such a new Ireland might look like based on the opinions and experiences of various informed and engaged individuals across the island, in Europe and the US on the challenges involved in building a new Ireland. This will incorporate analysis on constitutional matters, the development of the all-island economy, new health, education and other public services, and what such fundamental change means for the diverse cultures and identities that inhabit the island. The work will also track the intensifying debate on the timing of, and preparations for, a unity referendum as it has developed since the decision by UK voters to leave the EU in 2016, and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the health services in both jurisdictions since March 2020.

1

THE REFERENDUM ROADMAP

There is no agreement on when a referendum on Ireland’s constitutional future should take place but a range of voices across political, academic and civic society, and in the media, agree that detailed preparations should be in place before any vote. Research institutes, universities, government bodies and political parties have already commenced that preparation in papers and reports that set out the different challenges presented by a referendum on unity, and for society in Ireland if it is passed. They include recommendations on the timing and wording of the referendums, North and South, and the need for prolonged discussion and open debate – through citizens’ assemblies, parliamentary committees, a constitutional convention and other forums – about the implications of the vote for all people on the island.

The GFA sets out the strict parameters of the choice: the people of the North can decide to remain in the union with Britain or choose to become part of a reunified Ireland. If the North opts for the latter, the people of the South can agree to accept that decision and to make the necessary constitutional and other arrangements required to make it happen. The vote in each jurisdiction is decided on a simple majority of 50 plus 1 per cent of those who vote. Under the terms of the Agreement, and the UK’s Northern Ireland Act 1998, which gave it legislative effect, the decision on when to call a referendum rests with the secretary of state for Northern Ireland. The Act states that the secretary of state will direct the holding of a poll ‘when it appears likely to him [sic] that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland.’

In this respect, the GFA sets out a pathway for unity based on the concept that the people of Ireland, separately but concurrently, should decide their own future. It gives the power to the British government to decide a date for a referendum, while it also provides for a regular poll on unity to take place at a frequency of not more than every seven years. In other words, if the prospect of unity is rejected on the first occasion, voters can be asked to consider it every seven years until the proposal is accepted.

The GFA also envisaged a situation where devolved political structures, agreed during the negotiations for the peace agreement in 1998, could continue after a vote for unity. Thus, the power-sharing executive and the elected assembly that sits at Stormont in Belfast could continue to function after any such vote as a form of local or devolved administration, or for a transitional period, in a united Ireland. Similarly, the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC), which is separate to and independent of the assembly and other structures of the GFA, could also continue to function as a mechanism for continuing co-operation of the two sovereign governments after a vote for unity.

The GFA does not prescribe the details of the new constitutional arrangements or political structures that would be put in place following a vote for unity. Neither does it, nor could it, specify how the post-unification society would deliver the basic requirements of its citizens in relation to health, education, transport or other public service provision, or on the range of policies, laws, rules and procedures that make for a functioning democratic society.

Instead, following a vote for unification, it will be left to the government of Ireland – which will have sovereignty after the referendum – in consultation with its citizens, to decide what should be done to ensure that the new, unified island maintains the confidence of its citizens in the institutions and laws of the new state. This also applies to the issues that would need to be addressed if voters in the North reject the proposal for a united Ireland and seek to remain part of the UK; then the responsibility would lie with the British government to oversee any required changes in its administration.

Research is continuing on the timing and form of the referendums, as well as on the potential constitutional rearrangements, political structures and policies that might be best suited to accommodate a vote by a majority of people in the North to become part of a united Ireland. However, it is agreed by all of those engaged in this research that the people who are being asked to exercise their right to self-determination should be informed of the constitutional, economic, political and social consequences in advance of the referendums. Some academics have asserted that, while the referendums must be held concurrently, that does not mean simultaneously, nor on the same day, as occurred when the GFA was endorsed by voters, North and South, on 25 May 1998.

On that occasion, voters in the North were asked to agree to the proposals contained within the proposed Agreement (they had received copies of the document in the weeks previous). Voters in the South were also asked to agree to the removal of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution, which contained a territorial claim over Northern Ireland, and to replace them with a provision that only a decision reflecting the wish of a majority of voters in the North could end the union with Britain. This principle of consent was balanced by the right to self-determination given to the people of Ireland through concurrent votes, North and South.

Those entitled to vote will be determined by the two governments and some observers believe that the franchise could be extended, as was the case in the 2014 Scottish referendum on independence, to allow all those over the age of 16, and possibly Irish citizens living in other jurisdictions, to participate, given the historic significance of the poll for younger and future generations. Any such extension could require a constitutional amendment in the South in advance of the referendum on unity.

It is evident that the optimum way to a seamless or, at least, less disruptive transition to a unified Ireland is to ensure that voters have a reasonably clear picture of the constitutional arrangements and political structures that will emerge if they choose the unity option. For this reason, it would seem obvious that voters should know in advance what changes are required to be made to the Irish Constitution to facilitate unity, or indeed whether an entirely new one should be constructed. Voters should know in advance what guarantees will be put in place to ensure that the identity of those who will remain British citizens in a united Ireland is protected. Similarly, the GFA anticipated a bill of rights for Northern Ireland, which has not yet been introduced, which could then apply in any new constitutional arrangement.

While some will argue for a minimalist approach to constitutional change, there are others in both parts of the island in political, academic and legal circles, and in civic society, who see the referendums as an opportunity to continue, or accelerate, a more transformative process of social and political change, post-unification. The GFA envisaged such progress to a modern, pluralist society when it required the sovereign government, following unity, to exercise power on the basis of the principles of equality and parity of esteem of both communities. In order for this ambition to be realised, detailed and fact-based research over a significant period of time, and across civic and political society and opinion on the island, is required. Consideration should also be given to how existing rights can be expanded for each citizen, including those from all ethnic, migrant and other minority communities.

As the entire territory of a united Ireland will immediately become part of the EU, without any change to the Treaty of Rome, the new sovereign government will also be a party to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). These and other EU laws and institutions will underpin the human rights, equality and other legislative protections of citizens of the new, united Ireland. In this regard, the citizens of the new state will come under the legislative remit of both the sovereign government of Ireland and of the EU.

2

THE EVOLUTION OF AN EARTHQUAKE

The decision by the people of Britain in the 2016 referendum to leave the EU unleashed a wave of anger and resentment in the North among the voters who had chosen to remain. An estimated 40 per cent of unionists and 85 per cent of nationalists were among those who voted to remain (The Conversation, April 2017). These included many engaged in farming and agriculture-related industries, which for decades have relied heavily on EU transfers from the Common Agricultural Programme.

When the assembly and executive collapsed the following year, in early March 2017, following the decision by Sinn Féin (SF) to pull out of the power-sharing arrangements, disaffection among nationalists escalated. Their ability to influence political decision making in the North diminished and their future outside the EU was being determined exclusively by the British government and the Westminster parliament.

The collapse of the institutions came amid recriminations over the involvement of senior Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) ministers in a scandal surrounding huge payments to its supporters from a Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI) scheme introduced by the British government. This followed an earlier controversy over the sale of properties in the North controlled by the National Asset Management Agency, an Irish government body set up to deal with the bad debts of the main banks in the South following the financial crash of 2008/09. The controversy implicated and politically damaged DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson, as well as some of his party colleagues in the NI Executive, and led to criminal charges against other individuals with close links to the organisation.

Nationalist and republican concerns were exacerbated when the DUP entered into a confidence and supply agreement with the British government and Conservative Party leader Theresa May, a few months after the collapse of the Stormont institutions, deepening a suspicion that the largest unionist party had little or no interest in restoring the devolved administration. Given that they were holding the balance of power at Westminster, and their open support for a hard Brexit, the DUP MPs were under no urgency to continue sharing power with SF and other parties in the North.

In the absence of political institutions, and amid growing fears about the impact of a no-deal or hard Brexit on the North, fresh voices emerged from within the nationalist and republican community about their lack of political representation and the uncertain future facing them and their children as Irish citizens. As a reflection of these concerns, Ireland’s Future (IF), a non-party initiative of civic nationalists, emerged with an open letter sent by email to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, on 8 December 2017 and published in the Irish News three days later. The letter was signed by almost 200 people, including prominent members of the business, academic, legal, arts and sporting communities across the North. It described the political pact between the DUP and the Conservative Party as ‘a grave threat to political progress’. It noted the ‘concerted undermining of the political institutions’ and said the political crisis in the North was due to the failure of both governments to defend the Good Friday, Stormont House and St Andrews agreements made over the previous two decades:

The result has been a denial and refusal of equality, rights and respect towards the section of the community to which we belong, as well as everyone living here. The impending reality of Brexit now threatens to reinforce partition on this island and revisit a sense of abandonment as experienced by our parents and grandparents. The fact that a majority of voters in the north of Ireland voted to remain within the EU must not be ignored.

On the day the letter was delivered, 8 December, Varadkar, made an official statement with a commitment to the nationalist people in the North that their interests were being protected during the negotiations with Britain on its departure from the EU: ‘Your birth right as Irish citizens, and therefore as EU citizens, will be protected. There will be no hard border on our island. You will never again be left behind by an Irish government.’ Just weeks earlier, on 23 November, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, told the Oireachtas Committee on the Good Friday Agreement, that he ‘would like to see a united Ireland in my lifetime, and, if possible, in my political lifetime’.

Both Irish government leaders were responding to the outbreak of anger among nationalists in the North at the absence of political representation since the collapse of the institutions, the increasing prospect of a no-deal Brexit, which could see the reintroduction of a hard border in Ireland, and the influence of the DUP at Westminster where it held the balance of power.

In return for the support of the DUP’s 10 MPs, the May administration, it appeared, was prepared to jettison its responsibilities to advance significant provisions in the GFA in relation to human rights and legacy issues arising from the conflict, and on the promise of Irish language legislation and other commitments the British government had made since 1998.

After lengthy negotiations brokered by Coveney and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley, a package of proposals that could have restored the power-sharing executive was rejected at the eleventh hour by DUP leader Arlene Foster in early February 2018. She rejected claims from SF that an agreement had been reached on contentious issues such as an Irish language act, marriage equality and a proposed bill of rights for NI, but it was widely suspected that the plug has been pulled on a deal at the insistence of the DUP MPs at Westminster.

The failure of this latest attempt to restore the institutions re-energised the campaign by IF, which set about widening its appeal across the nationalist and wider non-unionist community and refining its message. It found a growing audience, including among ‘soft unionists’ and people of no affiliation to either of the main political traditions. Many of these had voted against Brexit in 2016 and were deeply concerned about the direction the process of withdrawal from the EU was taking and its longer-term implications for their families and communities. IF reflected these concerns and also tapped into a deepening anxiety across the communities arising from the nature of the Brexit deal Theresa May was promoting and her stated intention to remove protections provided to Irish citizens in the North through the GFA and the ECHR.

Niall Murphy, a founding member of the group and a solicitor with Belfast firm KRW Law, represented clients seeking redress for suffering they endured at the hands of the British state, its army and police during the years of conflict. Among these were victims of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries, including those killed and injured by an Ulster Defence Association (UDA) gang at Sean Graham bookmakers shop on the Ormeau Road, in Belfast in 1992, and those shot dead in an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) attack on O’Toole’s pub in Loughinisland, County Down, in 1994. As a director of the board of the human rights group Relatives for Justice, Murphy was also concerned by the failure of the British government to address the legacy of official state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries and unresolved and illegal killings by British security forces. As a solicitor, he was particularly angered by the prime minister’s proposals to remove the protections and legal recourse available to his clients, including a number from the loyalist community, from the ECHR.

The next major initiative of the embryonic movement was planned to coincide with May’s attempt to push through her best attempt at a Withdrawal Agreement in the Westminster parliament in Autumn 2018. IF decided to convene a major gathering of civic nationalism, along with as many unionists and those of other political persuasions as were willing to attend, to demonstrate their opposition to May’s proposals and the continued absence of political representation within the North since the collapse of the power-sharing institutions. In response to Coveney’s and Varadkar’s statements of support for nationalists in the North, Murphy and the small group of activists that led the IF initiative issued an invitation to Coveney to open, and to Varadkar to close the event: a conference to be held in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall in October 2018. In the run up to the conference, discussions were held in Belfast with two officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Eamon Molloy and Fergal Mythen, who passed on the request to their colleagues in Dublin.

In reply, Coveney and his senior department officials requested that the conference be postponed given the sensitivity of the Brexit discussions between the British government and the EU and their concern that such an event attended by senior politicians, including the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, from Dublin would upset unionists. The Irish government officials argued that the unionists were already complaining about the ‘backstop’ envisaged in the deal negotiated by May, which would keep the North within the EU customs and trade area following Brexit. The compromise was designed to maintain a frictionless border in Ireland until alternative customs and other trading arrangements could be agreed in a final ‘divorce settlement’ and following a two-year transition period.

The Withdrawal Agreement and the Irish backstop would see the UK staying in a customs union with the EU while the North would also remain aligned with the EU single market for the purposes of certain rules and regulations. The DUP members at Westminster joined in the chorus of Brexiteers denouncing the perceived surrender of sovereignty by the prime minister marking the beginning of the end of the unhappy relationship between the party’s MPs and Theresa May. On the day she travelled to Brussels to close the deal in late November 2018, May’s main rival in the party, Boris Johnson, went to Belfast where he told cheering delegates at the DUP party conference that ‘no British government could or should’ agree to a border in the Irish Sea. ‘If you read the Withdrawal Agreement,’ Johnson said, ‘you can see that we are witnessing the birth of a new country called UK(NI) or Ukni. Ukni is no longer exclusively ruled by London or Stormont. Ukni is in large part to be ruled by Brussels.’ He warned that the backstop would separate Northern Ireland from the UK and repeated an earlier suggestion he had made for a bridge to be built between Scotland and Northern Ireland. ‘We need to junk the backstop,’ he told the receptive audience of DUP members.

The IF team acceded to Coveney’s request to postpone the conference and instead published a second letter in the Irish News to the Taoiseach, reminding him of the commitment he had made to nationalists in the North in December 2017. They warned, again, of the dangers posed by a hard deal Brexit and of the resulting suppression of rights available to Irish citizens north of the border:

The political institutions remain in suspension as political unionism continues to deny respect for our Irish identity and language, marriage equality, access to justice for legacy issues. As you know these rights are now taken for granted by citizens in other parts of these islands. The British Conservative government has rendered itself unable to effect any progress on these rights issues due to its dependence on the DUP. Brexit threatens to deepen the rights crisis and there is a real danger of serious erosion of current

guarantees … there

is a very real potential that partition could be reinforced, and our country and our people further divided. This is a source of grave concern to all of us.

What was as significant as the content of the letter was the range and profile of the signatories, representing a large swathe of opinion across all sections of nationalism in the North and further afield. Over a thousand people, spanning the legal, academic, business, cultural and sporting voices across the nationalist community signed it, including actor Adrian Dunbar, Oscar-winning film director Jim Sheridan, Derry footballer James McClean, and an array of business leaders, lawyers, university professors, school principals, healthcare and other professionals. Among the sports stars were three Olympic medal holders and 30 senior GAA all-Ireland winners, while two other signatories also held Oscars and one had climbed Mount Everest. The names, published in the Irish News