{"id":536993,"date":"2026-07-07T06:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/536993\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T06:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:19:12","slug":"new-approach-to-a-united-ireland-needed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/536993\/","title":{"rendered":"New approach to a united Ireland needed \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A chara, \u2013 Pat Leahy speculates that in a united Ireland, the present six-county Northern Ireland could remain a devolved entity, but under Dublin\u2019s rather than London\u2019s jurisdiction (\u201cWhat happens to Northern Ireland after unity? Answers are starting to emerge<\/a>\u201d, Opinion, July 6th).<\/p>\n

This is indeed a possibility, and one that a former Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> president suggested some years ago, but I think it ignores the demographic changes that are affecting the North<\/a> today and that will ultimately ensure a united Ireland anyway.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So perhaps a wider devolution could be considered, with 10 or so \u201cprovinces\u201d, 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.<\/p>\n

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. \u2013 Is mise le meas,<\/p>\n

EOIN \u00d3 MURCH\u00da,<\/p>\n

Cluain Dolc\u00e1in,<\/p>\n

Baile \u00c1tha Cliath 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A chara, \u2013 Pat Leahy speculates that in a united Ireland, the present six-county Northern Ireland could remain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,2443,3415],"class_list":["post-536993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-sinn-fein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}