Menu
What do the words ‘united Ireland’ even mean?
Would it be better for Northern Ireland?
Would it improve lives in the Republic of Ireland?
Would it be brought about without bloodshed?
The prospect of Irish unification is now more discussed than at any point since partition a century ago. Voters on both sides of the Irish border may have to confront for themselves what the answer to a referendum question would mean – for themselves, for their neighbours, and for their society.
Few certitudes are stronger than the beliefs of those who aspire to either Irish united or the continuation of Northern Ireland within the Union. Those passions are informed by centuries of history, by kinship, by family loyalty and by sincere belief that either Union or unity would be better.
Journalists Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride examine the strongest arguments for and against a united Ireland.
Commissioned by the ARINS project. arinsproject.com
Sam McBride is the Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Independent newspapers. He also writes on Northern Ireland for The Economist. He is a former Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter and has made a BBC film about the Northern Bank robbery. He is author of The Sunday Times bestseller Burned: The Inside Story of the ‘Cash-for-Ash’ Scandal and Northern Ireland’s Secretive New Elite and is a regular broadcaster. Sam lives in Belfast with his wife and two young children.
Fintan O’Toole MRIA is a columnist with The Irish Times and advising editor of the New York Review of Books. His many books on Irish history, politics, society and culture include We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland. He has been awarded the European Press Prize, the Orwell Prize for Journalism and the Robert Silvers Prize for Journalism.