The time for Irish unity is now -- economically, politically it makes perfect sense

A small island divided into two economies makes no sense in the modern world

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Could a United Ireland be the answer for Ireland's recovery?

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Like the idea of a national identity for Yorkshire or Cumbria, the idea that one moves from one nationality when moving from Dundalk (in the south) to Newry (a few mile away in the North) is nonsense. Statisticians who try to group those in the North into neat categories of British, Irish or Northern Irish miss the point: The majority of people in the North regard themselves as some sort of Irish.

And those who regard themselves as Northern Irish have far more in common with their neighbours a few miles away in the south than they do with anyone in Yorkshire, London or Cardiff. None of the parties in Wales or England – the Tories, Labour or Liberals – have any representation in Northern Ireland. Nor any real interest or connection with it.

Boost for a united Ireland support in new poll figures from Irish Times

For Westminster, Northern Ireland is a backwater to be funded by subvention, tolerated with sighs and sometimes a convenient place for Prime Ministers to exile their political enemies in cabinet. And that is why in the long run, Irish unity – a unity based on a joint parliament in Belfast and a strong role for Protestants holding the balance of power and with strong safeguards for those of British identity – makes sense: We in the south want a United Ireland while the English have no interest in the place.

They don’t realise it, but the southern Irish like their protestant fellow Irishmen and want them on board. The English merely tolerate them. The alternative to reunification is to keep nearly 60 per cent of the North’s population who regard themselves as Irish or Northern Irish in a British statelet that was designed along sectarian lines, ie to lock in a protestant majority.

 A statelet that moreover belongs to an entity that treats catholics as second class citizens. And here is another reason for unification: In the south we have had two protestant Heads of State. In Britain, the Head of state must be Protestant. This is offensive and grotesquely out of date. Despite accusations of being “priest-ridden” the south is far more progressive and pluralist than the north.
                   
As recent census data shows, the British constitution – based on Protestant supremacy – will soon be out of kilter with a Northern Ireland in which Catholics will soon be equal in number to Protestants and a decade or so after that become a majority. A majority of under 30 year old are already catholic. And here is the danger:

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