BELFAST

THE LATEST POLL of support for Irish unity in Northern Ireland, which sees the unity camp increase by 7% in two years, has caused Ulster Unionists to focus their minds on whether holding on as long as possible is really the right strategy in the face of continuing falling numbers in favour of maintaining the union with Britain.

“Unionists are thinking that they still have muscle now, and could get a favorable settlement if unity came sooner rather than later,” says Professor Sam O’Brien-Lundy of Roaring Hugh Hanna Academy, whose recent book Bring Back Home Rule is published by Proud Boy Publishing in Alabama. “If they wait too long, and the numbers continue to fall, then their position weakens with each passing year. Our academy used to be one hundred per cent Protestant and Unionist; today, it’s eighty per cent Catholic and Republican. I’m the first professor of Gaelic Torment the college has ever had. All my lectures are in old Ogham – we use genuine granite. The thing is, a significant proportion of my students are card-carrying Unionists. It’s an example of the shifts going on here. Unionism, as a bloc, would play a very significant role in any United Ireland. That – and the huge Sinn Fein support up here – is why Dublin politicians have chosen to devote their energies to places like the Gaza Strip instead of looking North. many of them are terrified of Irish Unity, despite eighty per cent of their own population being in favor of it. Remember, the two southern Government parties have no presence in the North. They spent fifty years trying to keep clear of it, while spouting a virtuous desire for Irish unity. Now unity is actually raising it’s head, all the virtue signalling is beginning to look, not just empty, but poisonous. Not unlike their position on Gaza.”