The Bridge to Scotland. A Unionist Umbilical Cord or A Link to a Celtic Union?

The proposed bridge from Northern Ireland is back in the news.

Boris Bridge an utter waste of money when we should be investing in saving jobs & safeguarding public services rather than wasting time and money on this white elephant which is little more than a dead cat strategy attempt to distract from Brexit shambles https://t.co/TKhy9M9J57

— Andrew Muir MLA (@AndrewMuirNI) July 22, 2020

The idea is utterly bonkers. Very expensive, and a major engineering challenge. Not to mention the tons of explosives and nuclear waste dumped at Beaufort Dyke over the years. From the Irish Times:

Environmentalists also fear that more secret British government papers, which may only be publicly released after 30, 50 or even 1OO years, will reveal the full extent of the cocktail of chemicals and radium dumped by the Ministry of Defence.

Dr Dixon believes that chemical and nerve gases such as anthrax and sarine, which was used in recent attacks on the Tokyo underground, may well have been dumped after the second World War. Even though the gases may have been sealed in metal drums encased in concrete, this casing will slowly degrade, enabling the poisons to leak into the sea.

An estimated 1.17 million tonnes of conventional weapons and chemical weapons have been deposited in Beaufort Dyke. Workmen laying a British Gas pipeline to link Scotland and Northern Ireland reported detecting metallic objects on the sea bed close to the dump. They also reported underwater explosions, which prompted MAFF to order an investigation.

So the chances of this bridge every materialising are slim to zero.

I for one am *totally* confident that the man who failed to build a bridge between London and London will build a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland. https://t.co/9tJYzaQW8O

— Deirdre Heenan (@deirdreheenan) July 22, 2020

Should it ever see the light of day its purpose depends on how you see the future.

Unionists look to it as a bridge to the ‘mainland’ but another scenario if Scotland becomes independent is that it becomes an important link in a potential Celtic Union between Ireland and Scotland. A 21st Century Kingdom of Dalriada?

Photo by Free-Photos is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

Brian O'Neill

Managing Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.