A United Ulster

Is now the time for the North’s Unionists to embark on a redesign of the political relations between these islands?

Leinster Says No

Today’s Sinn Fein conference in London on ‘Putting Irish Unity on the Agenda’ begs the obvious question: whose agenda? The contributors are overwhelmingly from Britain and Northern Ireland, and there are no elected Irish representatives (TDs or MEPs) down to speak. It reminds me of one of those family moments when the adult siblings are debating what they’re going to do with their ageing mother, whilst all the time their mother is in same the room – compos mentis – …

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The Younger Europeans

The latest Northern Ireland population forecasts – published today by NISRA – paint an interesting picture of the contrasting demographic fortunes of the two parts of the island. I have created the table below using CSO data for the South (their low migration, low fertility scenario) and the NISRA data for the North: Over the next ten years it looks like we will have a baby boom in the North and a baby bust in the South. Remarkable divergences on …

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Go North Young Man

Yesterday’s announcement of 400 jobs in Belfast by the NYSE, and today’s announcement of 100 jobs in Derry by Firstsource stand in marked contrast to the litany of closures in the Republic of Ireland. What’s going on? Most southern economists look on the North as a low wage, low skilled economic zone. During the boom years there was some truth in this (though it was all relative: too many jobs in the South were of the high wage, low skill …

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Bring Back the Border?

Hardly a day goes by south of the border without another exhortation to ‘Buy Irish’. And it isn’t just the indigenous retailers (Dunnes with ‘the difference is we’re Irish’, or Superquinn with ‘love the taste of Ireland’). Even the UK retailers are at it (e.g.: Tesco with its ‘buy me I’m Irish’, and similarly M&S). And Irish food manufacturers aren’t leaving it to the retailers: they have got together to launch ‘Love Irish Food’ – with a full monty advertising …

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