Don’t expect a united Ireland any time soon

A hundred years since the founding of the Irish state – on 6 December 1922 – how likely or desirable is the prospect of Irish unity? The recent electoral success of Sinn Fein suggested to many – particularly in the US – that the idea’s momentum is now unstoppable. Of course it’s being egged on by Sinn Fein itself, whose New York Times advertisements in March proclaimed that Irish unity would be in the best interests of ‘citizens abroad and the wider diaspora’. Extensive polling for the Irish Times this week, however, paints a much more complex, contradictory picture of opinion at home. Before stocking up on celebratory green beer, the Irish-American diaspora might well be advised to read it. 

Among those polled in the Republic of Ireland, two-thirds said they would vote for a united Ireland in a border referendum. Yet this number declined when respondents were asked to consider a new Irish flag or national anthem to accommodate unionist citizens: almost half then declared themselves less likely to vote for a united Ireland in the first place.