Cryptozoology: Unionist outreach to Catholics

Cryptozoology according to wikipedia is “the search for animals whose existence has not been proven.” Here in Northern Ireland we have our own version of this: not monsters in Lough Erne (though the pike can get pretty big) but rather the political version. The two most sought after fantasy animals are the fabled Garden Centre Prod and the unicorn that is the Unionist Catholic. These creatures probably hide in the Craigantlet and Castlereagh Hills in the case of the Garden …

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Why Demographics is the Norwegian Blue of NI’s Constitutional politics…

One of the things that’s been puzzling me about the news flows over the last few days. Why, when the NI Life and Times survey has been diligently mapping social and political attitudes over the least 13 years has everyone suddenly got so agitated about social patterns that have been apparent for most of that time. It’s like no one noticed before. But these figures were available when we first published our study of the future of unionism back in …

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