Fantasy Ireland?

Owen Bowcott noted that results of the census had raised sectarian tensions (and headcounts) every year since 1971. But when the last results were finally announced in December 2002 the hope of Catholics attaining majority status by force of higher birth rates, drained away almost overnight. Yet all of Northern Ireland’s Nationalist parties hold out for a possible future re-unification. Boston based writer Ron de Pasquale reckons it relies on pitching it coherently to the Protestant middle class.

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