“We have a very, very divided community ... If you raise issues that raise the tensions and the divisions even more, you force people further apart than they already are. So why would people want to engage in a process that will lead to exactly that conclusion: forcing people further apart?”
Thus the DUP’s Gregory Campbell placed himself as an unlikely defender of Taoiseach Micheál Martin on the topic of a Border poll. He was speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback (October 8th), addressing Leo Varadkar’s claim that his successor’s emphasis on reconciliation before constitutional change placed an “artificial barrier” to Irish unity. Needless to say, the phone-in programme went predictably around-and-about the well-trodden circles of such discussions.
For and Against a United Ireland is a direct challenge to any assertion that to debate is to polarise and thus to put peace at risk. The alternative to political violence is not silence but democracy. O’Toole and McBride set out to demonstrate a core principle of liberal democracy: that free and reasoned deliberation can help ensure good quality, consensual outcomes. In a world of hyper-communication, reasoning has become more difficult just as it has become more essential. This is partly because reason requires collaborative effort; it is the power of thinking that is formed under the influence of conversation and it is necessarily capable of understanding other views and experiences. Reason is an essential element of civility. O’Toole and McBride seek both. “We share a belief,” they write, “in rational inquiry, in honest debate and above all in deciding this island’s future by peaceful, democratic means.”
Recognising that none of these can be taken for granted – indeed, they are imperilled by apathy – O’Toole and McBride have decided to lead by example. And there can be no two individuals better placed to do so. With intelligence and rigour, they have each made historically significant interventions as journalists and authors. And they have exposed corruption, contradictions and ineptitude among those wielding power, both North and South. One suspects this new, joint endeavour will be similarly unwelcome for some of those whose ire they are well used to provoking.
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Provocation can serve a good purpose. The authors believe that if we refuse to even try to engage in the debate, we will find ourselves increasingly ill-equipped to do so. Convinced unionists should see as much danger in this as fervent nationalists. But for most people on the island, the fact that the future of Northern Ireland is a known unknown is reason itself to remain determinedly unengaged. This book is an effort to stir the “undecideds” out of indifference. And herein lies the originality of its approach: readers are pushed and pulled in both directions by the authors. The undecideds (they themselves and the authors would like to think) will vote yes or no to Irish unity not on the basis of sentiment, nostalgia or fear but on the grounds of persuasion by “the best rational arguments”. The crucial assumption is that it will be possible for voters to judge which outcome would be to their “material, social or cultural benefit”. Unfortunately, the book confirms that there is as yet insufficient evidence to make such an assessment.
The project that commissioned the book – Analysing and Researching Ireland, North and South (ARINS) – has laudably sought to bring research and information to the constitutional debate. O’Toole and McBride make good use of ARINS material in their arguments, and the text is interspersed with statistics and research findings (although the witty cartoons by Fergus Boylan may be more illuminating than the graphs). They effectively illustrate how data can be used to support opposing arguments, especially in the absence of clarity on fundamentals such as whether the Stormont Assembly would continue to exist or which model of health service would apply.
As such, the book highlights two key things. First, the necessity of detailed forward-looking policy positions from those advocating either cause. And, secondly, the crucial function served by the presentation and interpretation of relevant data, for good or ill. This is where another known unknown comes forcefully into play: Artificial Intelligence. AI will have an impact not only through the spreading of misinformation and misconceptions but also in allowing our critical faculties to wither. If we are not careful, the course of the debate about the future of Ireland is more likely to be forged online by AI bots and social media algorithms than in legislative chambers, community halls or citizens’ assemblies.
The need for human qualities of discernment and empathy in this debate is one reason why some readers may finish the book with a slight sense of discontentment – although perhaps this was intended. The conceit of For and Against a United Ireland is that, in arguing for both sides, neither author wants to persuade you towards a particular one. As such, the arguments are an exercise in mental agility rather than conviction. And thus, although a good number of questionable (though not spurious) claims are made, there is no interrogation of them. Even as a reviewer, one hesitates to pull any apart in light of the fact that the author has no real duty to stand over them. Indeed, the chapters are stand-alone and the authors talk past their alter-egos as well as each other.
Without such engagement, there is a risk of the aforementioned well-trodden circles becoming deeper rather than wider. Perhaps O’Toole and McBride will apply their capacious minds to the tasks of interrogation and interaction in the “live” version of the book, which they are taking to stages in Dublin, Belfast, London and various cities in the US.
In terms of substance, each of the four main chapters covers what the authors view as “the most important arguments on each side”. This includes themes of economy, health, education, identity and the risk of violence. The points that appear to be made most passionately challenge the latent illusions and self-delusions of nationalism and unionism.
Both authors (in each of their guises) agree that sociopolitical conditions in both jurisdictions on the island fall short of their potential. Hence, O’Toole’s argument for unification arises from the same premise as the one against (a premise the current Taoiseach may share): the North is not stable enough, the South is not strong enough – but the process of preparing for change may necessitate “a process of tangible improvement” in both.
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A recurring theme (notwithstanding occasional twinges of bombast from McBride) is that things could be so much better in both jurisdictions. Few would disagree. Indeed, it is this very sense of dissatisfaction that is causing a growing number to give up on liberal democratic norms. This is a challenge we are wholly unready for on the island of Ireland, and this book hints at why.
In some ways, For and Against a United Ireland is an exhibit of the political culture of the 1998 Belfast Agreement that we preserved rather than progressed, specifically in the bounded nature of constitutional nationalism and constitutional unionism. Their primary virtue lies in being the indispensable alternative to republican and loyalist violence. But as political ideologies today, they offer fairly thin gruel because the post-agreement constitutional question (as we have understood it to be) is too narrowly framed. The foremost question is not the nationality of a government but the nature of that government. Most fundamentally, we cannot assume that future governments in Ireland or the UK will be democratic. So many of the enabling conditions for the 1998 agreement are already splintered: common EU membership; the liberal world order; respect for international law; subscription to the European Convention on Human Rights. O’Toole and McBride know better than most the fragile qualities, if not tenuousness, of our liberal democracy. And they are right to keep the 1998 agreement as the foundation stone for its future.
The starting point for agreement between unionists, nationalists and others, then and now, is the fact that we share this island: we have bonds here, we want to remain here. This is true for people with diverse ethnicities and skin colour, with diverse religious beliefs, with diverse cultural practices, with different countries of birth. McBride is right that there should be no place for the slur of “planter” today. Yet those who would consider themselves the strongest British and Irish patriots have found common cause in far-right, anti-immigrant sentiment. We need only look west and east to see where this leads.
We are fortunate to have the 1998 agreement – not as a fix to an old conflict but as a bulwark against new anti-democratic threats. It stands for the “protection and vindication of the human rights of all”. It requires “opposition to any use or threat of force by others for any political purpose”. The power of the sovereign government is to be founded on “freedom from discrimination for all citizens”. Rigorous adherence to such principles today would uphold peaceful, democratic conditions in the new Ireland that already exists, as well as help secure them for whatever one may come.
O’Toole and McBride have ably demonstrated the democratic necessity of debate. It is up to us to realise what it is that we urgently need to be able to argue in defence of, together.
Katy Hayward MRIA is professor of political sociology at Queen’s University Belfast. Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride debate For and Against a United Ireland as part of the NCH Talks Series in the National Concert Hall at 7pm on Sunday, November 30th.
Further Reading
Political Change in Britain and Ireland (2025) by Paul Gillespie, Michael Keating and Nicola McEwen (eds). A collection of fresh analyses from leading scholars looking at the post-Brexit state of institutions and identities across these islands and emphasising their interconnectedness.
Making Sense of a United Ireland (2024) by Brendan O’Leary. With an unabashed focus on “feasible reunification”, and on the assumption that the demographic tectonic plates have shifted definitively towards it, this is a serious and thorough exploration of different models for unification.
Perils and Prospects of a United Ireland (2023) by Pádraig O’Malley. Including insights from almost 100 interviewees across various perspectives on the island, this weighty tome offers a careful and non-partisan consideration of unification.
Analysing and Researching Ireland, North and South by ARINS. "Authoritative, independent and non-partisan analysis and research on constitutional, institutional and policy options for Ireland, North and South", this initiative offers publicly-accessible research and material to inform discussion, including that of O’Toole and McBride.
