Editor:
Taoiseach Micheál Martin recently remarked that he “goes bananas” when members of his own party raise the question of a Border poll. But perhaps the more important question is why an Irish Taoiseach should be so frustrated by discussion of a democratic mechanism explicitly provided for in the Good Friday Agreement.
The problem is larger than one unfortunate phrase. The Taoiseach increasingly appears to treat preparation for Irish unity as something potentially divisive — something best postponed until conditions are somehow more favorable.
That gets the process backwards.
A referendum should not begin the work of building a new Ireland. It should be the democratic culmination of years of preparation for one.
Those of us advocating Irish unity must therefore move beyond simply asking when a Border poll will be held and start answering a more important question: What are we asking people to vote for?
A new Irish Republic cannot simply mean extending the existing institutions of the 26 counties northward. People throughout all 32 counties — nationalist, unionist and neither — should participate in designing something new.
That means serious discussion about healthcare, taxation, pensions, education, policing, constitutional protections, cultural identity, symbols and representation. It also means listening seriously to unionists rather than simply asking them to join a state someone else has already designed.
This work should begin now.
The outcome of a future referendum may depend upon it. Undecided voters will not be persuaded by history or demographic change alone. They need to know what the alternative to partition actually looks like and whether there is a place for them within it.
The new Irish Republic begins now — before the referendum. It begins when people across Ireland start imagining and constructing together the society that could follow partition.
Preparation does not predetermine the outcome of a referendum. It respects the electorate enough to give them a developed proposition upon which to make an informed democratic choice.
The greatest obstacle to Irish unity may therefore not be those who openly oppose it, but those who profess to favor it while continually insisting that the time to prepare has not yet arrived.
That time is now.
Timothy P. Cotton, Orange, VA
