The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is one of the most contentious in the world. But what really divides Ireland, and is unification a real possibility? Read more:
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskFor the past 101 years, a pro-British party has won every election to Stormont, the province’s governing assembly. And for the past 19 years the Democratic Unionist Party has always been the victor. If the polls are accurate, that is about to change.
Yet the past six years have shown how far off unity may be. An unpopular Brexit, years of unionist incompetence, a prime minister who manages to unite voters of all stripes in their dislike of him, and a growing Catholic population amount to the most propitious circumstances possible for nationalism.
The province has been in this position before: for three of the past five years, it has had no government. But according to Ann Watt of Pivotal, a think-tank, a period without an executive “will inevitably make life harder for individuals and families here in Northern Ireland—with the most vulnerable people disproportionately affected”.
If unionists think they have lost their chance to vote down the protocol, a more militant approach may prevail. A year ago serious rioting erupted in several parts of Northern Ireland; paramilitaries in balaclavas openly taught children born long after the Good Friday Agreement how to make petrol bombs. The violence subsided as unionist leaders said politics could remove the sea border, but its threat lingers.