Letters: The politics of easy-peelers

Divided we stand

Sir: I was pleased to see that Jenny McCartney picked up on the recent poll from the Irish Times which took a lot of air out of the Irish Unity hot air balloon (‘A bridge too far’, 10 December).

British citizens in Northern Ireland have been told for years that a united Ireland is inevitable and indeed is just around the corner. I am now 52 years old and all throughout my childhood (which coincided with the euphemistically titled ‘Troubles’) sympathetic commentators and republican politicians said we should all prepare for such a time. By 2016 we would be in an all-Ireland state to coincide with the centenary of the violent Easter Rising. That didn’t happen. Now we are told by Irish republican lobby groups that it is coming in a decade. It’s not. The Irish Times poll confirmed that, with only 26 per cent of the Northern Irish respondents in favour of leaving the UK.