Nationalism risks its own form of “dummymander”: reading the 2021 census as a countdown to unity, much as Texas Republicans redrew their maps on demographic assumptions and lost. The Taoiseach’s new body offers a stronger path, preparing for several futures and engaging every tradition, so that consent is earned rather than assumed.
The Taoiseach’s new constitutional research body will examine three futures for the island: a unitary state, a devolved united Ireland and the status quo. Rather than staking everything on a border poll that may never come, it builds an evidence base, and a set of tools for future taoisigh, that will be useful whatever happens.
For a generation, unionist parties competed on who looked toughest. The Garvaghy Road standoff suggests that has changed. Jon Burrows has made restraint look like strength, and the DUP now faces pressure from both sides. A game-theory look at how the three unionist parties responded.
Gavin Robinson’s call for unionist electoral co-operation looks back to a past that no longer exists. After the muted response to Drumcree, a growing pro-union constituency wants delivery, consensus and a working Good Friday Agreement rather than “circle the wagons” pacts. This piece asks why the UUP would tie itself to the DUP and TUV.
At 105, partition is unlikely to end on a 50%-plus-one border poll. Nationalism’s vote has stalled at 40% while voters drift to “neither”. The path forward runs through governing Northern Ireland well, not waiting it out, and Micheál Martin’s Bodenstown speech shows what that looks like.
The Orange Order’s right to walk the Garvaghy Road was upheld and loyalism stayed calm, but by following a dissident lead, mainstream nationalism hardened tribal lines and alienated the uncommitted voters it needs to reach 50%.
The Garvaghy Road estates were formed in a few short years by families fleeing intimidation, and that founding story is still being renewed. The law may be clear on the Orange Order’s right to walk, but neither a court ruling nor tribal politics can resolve what only engagement will.
Casement Park is demolished and unbuilt, and the SDLP is fighting a sitting MLA in its own ranks. The nationalist vote has barely moved since 1998, even as unionism has declined. Now Jon Burrows is talking up Northern Ireland’s future and challenging Michelle O’Neill to debate it. Nationalism talks up an imminent border poll but has no policy map to get there.
A Garvaghy Road march in current circumstances would achieve little beyond sectarian turbulence. But the Parades Commission’s flawed decision-making has left it damaged goods too — and the way out is new appointments and a cultural accord governing all parades, protests and public events.
The latest LucidTalk poll gets read as unionism in decline. Look at the blocs instead: unionism’s problem is fragmentation, nationalism’s is quieter and harder, and both the DUP and Sinn Féin are both paying for a partnership that delivers nothing.
This 4th July, both Irish states will fete America’s founding. But the cherished narrative of Presbyterian Scots-Irish frontiersmen as the backbone of the Revolution obscures the Gaelic Irish written out of the record, the Protestant migration unionists prefer to forget, and the political convenience shaping how both traditions remember.
During a week dominated by Jeffrey Donaldson’s conviction, a quieter story slipped past: the Irish Government’s Shared Island Initiative passed €1 billion in commitments to 2030. From a Stormont cricket ground to a sub-two-hour Belfast–Dublin train, it revives a pragmatism that runs from Seán Lemass straight to Micheál Martin: cooperation without precondition, benefit without constitutional strings. The question now is whether Northern ministers will become active partners or passive recipients.
My dad died two days before Christmas in 2023. On the day of his funeral rain poured from the heavens. We waded through thick mud to get to his grave. “Christ,” my brother remarked, “it’s like the f**king Somme.” In Northern Ireland, protestant burials are often small, private affairs. Only close family go and you must be invited to attend. When we arrived, we expected a small number of people. To our surprise, there was a crowd. My dad was …
Northern Ireland’s unionist parties face a reckoning — caught between reactive politics and the collaborative vision of the Good Friday Agreement. Without a credible strategy or genuine commitment to its three strands, political unionism risks permanent decline.
David McNarry, former advisor to FM David Trimble and a former Strangford MLA for UUP/UKIP argues Unionism’s fractured political landscape may have found its wildcard — but will Nigel Farage’s Reform UK have the courage to play it? It is true that in ceding political primacy to nationalist and republicans, unionists have paid a heavy price. Cringeworthy is the woeful state of unionist representation in the NI Assembly, Belfast City Council and across local councils. And yet the divided party …
Northern Ireland is no longer a simple two-way divide. As a growing “middle ground” of voters begins to prioritize economic stability, healthcare, and public services over traditional ideology, Independent Unionist MP Alex Easton argues that Unionism must stop the infighting and start selling the tangible benefits of the UK. From the £25 billion fiscal gap to the strengths of the NHS, Easton explores why the Union remains the most viable path forward—if Unionists can finally get their act together.
The DUP went back to the La Mon Hotel for the first time in nearly a decade. Several hundred delegates gathered as the party marks 18 months back in government and is gearing up for the 2027 Assembly and Local Government Elections. The party ministers spent time firing shots at Sinn Fein and the TUV, with Upper Bann MLA, Jonathan Buckley played the role of delivering the message to the base with a speech focusing on immigration. Leaders speech bu …
Every time I do a panel; there’s always a smart alec in the crowd. A man, usually. Without doubt he will say, “Yeah, but the British don’t care about you.” He thinks he’s the first person in the world to have this original thought. Yes, I always say, yes we know. I don’t know a single protestant in Northern Ireland that doesn’t. My grandparents knew. My great grandparents knew before them. It’s not my fault you’ve never spoken to a …
Gavin Robinson took to the stage in his first speech as DUP leader. Addressing around 300 delegates, he attempted to reset a party that had been battered over the past three years. With devolution restored and a run of elections now behind the party, Robinson has a huge task ahead. How do you restore a once-dominant party to its former strength? One clear message from the conference is that the DUP is in a rebuilding phase. Despite the success of …
UUP plan to have new leader in place by 14 September at an extraordinary general meeting pic.twitter.com/8z1JgR1oSb — Jayne McCormack (@BBCJayneMcC) August 20, 2024 David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs
