BY PATRICK PEARSE TONE CONNOLLY KEVIN BARRY BORU, SECTARIAN EDITOR

“THEY’RE THE only ones doing anything positive to bring about a United Ireland.”

Joe (not his real name) has been a Sinn Fein voter all his life. “I did a five-stretch in the Kesh and two more in Port Laoise, so I’m Republican to my kneecaps,” he says. “But the news that Michelle O’Neill is going to Charlie’s coronation, that did it for me. So I began to look around, and from what I can see the DUP is the party that’s done more for republican ideals than any other. I mean Brexit, of course, where they’ve played a blinder. They’re even keeping Stormont in shackles. Never felt comfortable with the place myself. I don’t know a more rebellious organisation in Europe. So I’m gonna vote for them next time out. And so are a lot of others who used to vote Sinn Fein.”

Joe is right. He is not alone. Many Sinn Fein voters believe that the party, in its efforts to work the Good Friday Agreement, has “gone native”. Which is borne out by figures suggesting unionists are shifting their loyalty to Sinn Fein.

“It’s weird,” says a Belfast journalist. “You have folk from the Republican Falls Road heading off to party meetings on the Unionist Shankill Road. And vice versa. They even open the peace wall to facilitate it.

“Republicans who believed they had dragged the British Government to the negotiating table by force of arms, now wonder whether if it was only to set the table for tea and cakes with King Charles.”

“I know the strategy,” says Majella from Derry. “I know the party is really doing this to solidify its southern vote and make soft unionists think we’re acceptable. And all that there. But, Jesus, Charlie will be crowned King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And if someone tells me it’s what Bobby Sands would have wanted, I’ll fuckin’ do ’em, I will. I mean I’m hearin’ more people in England object to the coronation than here.”

“Then you look at the DUP,” says Bobby from South Armagh. “I was ‘out’ trying to break the link with England in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. And we got so close. “But the DUP, they’ve actually broken the link with England. They’ve done it. There’s now a border in the Irish Sea. I shed a tear when that happened and praised God for Jeffrey Donaldson. To keep him alive and well.

“Yeah, the Protocol did it for me,” admits Ray from East Tyrone. “You have to give it to the DUP, it was their doing. Ach, I know they’re protesting against it now, probably because they look such fuckin’ idiots, but, still, they just keep doin’ stuff that pushes us towards a united Ireland. Not sitting in London waiting for a knighthood. I mean, will Sinn Fein now take their seats at Westminster, open constituency offices in Kilburn? Put up candidates in England?”

Daithi, from South Armagh, said he was not really too political, but he was voting DUP next time out to thank them for “the smuggling opportunities the Protocol has brought. It’s fantastic.”