A Kilkenny-born farmer has launched an ambitious bid to secure the unification of Ireland under British rule.
Tristan Morrow, 19, says that his Irish Unionist Party will be on the ballot box during the next Irish general election in 2025.
Morrow told the Irish Sun that his party probably won't "win anything" at the next general election but added that he launched the party to stand up for what he believes in.
The 19-year-old has been fixing Irish Unionist Party stickers to lamp posts in several Irish and and Northern Irish towns stretching from County Down to County Limerick in a bid to spread the word about his fledgling party.
He said that he wants a fully functioning pro-union party to be operating in the Republic of Ireland in the event of Irish unification.
"In a functioning Republic, you must have an opposition and that opposition would be a unionist one realistically, seeing as over one million Irish people identify as unionist," Morrow told the Irish Sun.
"If there is a united Ireland they (republicans) must accept that there will be a unionist party in the south, one way or another," he continued.
In a post on the Irish Unionist Party Twitter account, Morrow said that Ireland must rejoin the United Kingdom to "fight off" foreign nations and secure its borders.
IUP has made its way to Belfast 🇬🇧☘️
— Irish Unionist Party (@UnionistIrish) November 1, 2021
Let Ireland be one nation again! Only together as a united Isles can we fight off the encroaching foreign unions. The world is becoming more mad day by day, we must secure our borders. #Rethink32 #IrishUnionism pic.twitter.com/3T97fzXMFh
Morrow said that his party has attracted between 20 and 30 members since he founded it last year and said that most members are in their 20s and from Clare and Limerick.
The party has engaged in a cross-border "Restore Our Kingdom" campaign, with stickers appearing in Bangor, Lurgan, Enniskillen, Ennis, and Limerick among other locations.
The stickers feature a St. Patrick's Cross in addition to anti-abortion and anti-EU messages.
Morrow also said that he was fighting back against a lack of freedom of speech in the Republic of Ireland, claiming that he has received death threats because of his unionist leanings.
"I find it a bit challenging that all of the parties in the Republic have to be pro-state and pro-status quo or else get a massive amount of backlash from the public.
"In the North, you can be a republican party and run for office and be a unionist party and run for office."
However, he said that unionists in the Republic of Ireland receive death threats, adding that an Irish Unionist Party member had been sent a picture of a gun.
He also said that his family were forced to move out of their Kilkenny home because of their unionist leanings and said that they now live across the border in Northern Ireland.
Morrow said that citizens on the island of Ireland would be both Irish and British if British rule was reinstated over the Republic of Ireland.
He is also proposing "A Little Bit of Heaven" by Scottish tenor John McDermott as a potential new national anthem.
Morrow is currently trying to raise funds and awareness online and will launch anti-republican posters in the coming months.
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