A chara, – Pat Leahy speculates that in a united Ireland, the present six-county Northern Ireland could remain a devolved entity, but under Dublin’s rather than London’s jurisdiction (“What happens to Northern Ireland after unity? Answers are starting to emerge”, Opinion, July 6th).
This is indeed a possibility, and one that a former Sinn Féin president suggested some years ago, but I think it ignores the demographic changes that are affecting the North today and that will ultimately ensure a united Ireland anyway.
Protestants, the bedrock of unionism, are no longer in a majority in Northern Ireland, and this decline is certain to intensify. What would be the point of a devolved six-county area if it too had a nationalist majority?
Perhaps the whole question should be looked at a different way. There is already, especially in the West, a growing resentment that our centralised system ignores the needs and aspirations, not just of Northern Protestants but of communities in rural and underdeveloped areas.
RM Block
So perhaps a wider devolution could be considered, with 10 or so “provinces”, with the current North being divided between three or four of them: East Ulster (Ulaidh) based on Belfast; West Ulster (Aileach) based on Derry; and South Ulster (Airghialla and Breiffne) based on Dundalk and Sligo respectively.
East Ulster would have a clear Protestant majority which might allay fears, though such an arrangement would have to be underpinned by a very strong Bill of Rights to prevent discrimination and official sectarianism. – Is mise le meas,
EOIN Ó MURCHÚ,
Cluain Dolcáin,
Baile Átha Cliath 22.
