Irish unity

Unionist parties reject Modeling Irish Unification Report

David McCann on March 23, 2016, 1:18 pm

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No real surprise here, but worth noting the response of the two main Unionist parties to the launch of the Modeling Irish Unification. The report was launched this morning at The MAC in Belfast with Sinn Fein, SDLP MLAs and economists in the audience. This report argues that Irish unity could potentially bring a €35.6 billion boost in GDP for the island in the first eight years. Responding for the UUP, Steve Aiken argues that the reports main conclusions are …

McWilliams on EU economic re-alignment driving a possible United Ireland

David McCann on August 2, 2015, 9:18 pm

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David McWilliams has an interesting column in today’s Sunday Business Post which muses on whether a United Ireland may not be that far away. The essential premise of McWilliams argument is that looking through history we have seen rapid changes, some of them very unexpected. Even in our own history, McWilliams points out the seemingly clear run that the Irish Parliamentary Party had in 1915 which would be abruptly destoryed in 1918 by the Sinn Fein sweep. Furthermore, he points …

In the gloom of Summer a debate about Irish unity has begun

David McCann on July 30, 2015, 10:49 am

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Brian noted a piece written by Aaron McKenna on The Journal.ie about why Irish unity is a fundamentally bad idea. Responding to his piece, Sinn Fein’s Matt Carthy sets out his view about why unity is a good idea. Regardless of your views on either, I am personally half way between them on this issue, I think the debate is a really good one to have; here is where Matt attempts to set out some the nuts and bolts of …

Republicanism cannot have any no go areas.

David McCann on May 2, 2015, 3:20 pm

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There has been a small Twitter row over a recent election leaflet put out by Sinn Fein’s North Belfast candidate, Gerry Kelly displaying the number of Catholics and Protestants in the constituency. The debates about the rights and wrongs of the leaflet have been argued out on Mick’s thread on the topic and I don’t propose to cover that here, but it did get me thinking about the future direction of republicanism/nationalism. I write (or ramble) about republicanism and in …

Some thoughts on the Economics of Unity.

David McCann on April 24, 2014, 5:41 pm

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Within Republicanism I am definitely on what I call the Diana Ross wing of thinking which says ‘you can’t hurry love’ That is why I have consistently opposed Sinn Fein’s move for a border poll right now, as I have always thought Republicanism needs to move off the notion of territorial lines on a map and simply quoting events that happened a century ago. It has long been a criticism of Irish nationalism that we lack a coherent economic argument …

Anna Lo- A United Ireland would be better placed economically, socially and politically

David McCann on March 20, 2014, 8:05 am

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Expect more things like this from Anna Lo-she is full of surprises and her interview with John Manley in today’s Irish News is no exception to this rule as she speaks about her position on Irish unity. In the piece she tells Manley; I’m an honest person…I think it is such a small place…To divide it up and the corner of Ireland to be part of the United Kingdom… it’s very artificial. Lo stated her belief that …

Whatever you do, don’t stand out from the crowd.

David McCann on February 14, 2014, 9:24 pm

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In an interview with Barton Creeth, the SDLP council candidate for Balmoral, Justin Cartwright made the following statement which caused a bit of a brew ha ha when he said this about whether he was campaigning for Irish unity No I’m not. I’m an economic unionist. Increasing numbers of nationalist voters are moving away from this idea of a united Ireland. There’s a reason for that, because people aren’t economically illiterate. They look at the the economy of the Republic of Ireland and they …

McCann meets… Phil Flanagan MLA

David McCann on September 19, 2013, 6:41 pm

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Many of you know that I put out a call on twitter for suggestions on which politicians they would like to see interviewed for Slugger. Today I bring you the first interview with Stormont’s No.1 tweeter, Sinn Fein MLA, Phil Flanagan. This was aired earlier on Lisburns 98FM. I met Phil on Tuesday in Stormont and we conducted this 40 minute interview. We covered a broad range of subjects from his background to his recent twitter war with Tom Elliott. …

Healy-Rae: “…it should make decent Irish people – however innocent – cringe with refracted embarrassment.”

Mick Fealty on July 2, 2011, 10:57 am

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There’s a nicely understated piece of writing in the Irish Times this morning, by displaced northerner Donald Clark, who probably thinks about these things more than many of his neighbours. Clark whimsically probes some of the possible reasons that may be making northerners of all stripes think twice about what we once un-self consciously called the Free State. It starts and ends with the Healy-Raes’ use of Oireachtas resources (ie, not less than €2,600 of phone calls) to ‘help Michael, …

One small region, slightly damaged, several careless owners…

John Ó Néill on September 2, 2010, 6:20 pm

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Mary Dejevsky has written a piece for the Belfast Telegraph that will go down well in some quarters and not so well in others. She is suggesting that it is time that the British government off-load Northern Ireland by one of several routes: including independence, secession or to offer to sell it to the Republic of Ireland. Her objection handling is quite interesting, for what it ignores as much as what she deals with, like religion. There is no mention …