Unionism, Identity and Irish Unity: Paradigms, Problems and Paradoxes

Todd Todd

doi:10.3318/isia.2021.32b.8

Abstract

Unionism, Identity and Irish Unity: Paradigms, Problems and Paradoxes

Highlights

THE TWO TRADITIONS PARADIGMWhat form of united Ireland, if any, could accommodate unionist identity?1 The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 provided for equivalent protections for minorities north and south in rights and equality legislation
This article explores unionist concerns about Irish unity and asks what forms of Irish unity might accommodate those concerns. It explores the concept of accommodation and the status of unionist fears—do they concern physical or ontological security? the article is concerned with paradigms of thought, the conditions of accommodation, respect and recognition, the nature and meaning of identity, as well as with the institutional and constitutional forms of a possible future united Ireland
It was widely understood that there would be equivalent protection for unionists in a possible future united Ireland as there are for nationalists in Northern Ireland

Summary

THE TWO TRADITIONS PARADIGM

What form of united Ireland, if any, could accommodate unionist identity?1 The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 (hereafter the Agreement) provided for equivalent protections for minorities north and south in rights and equality legislation. Unionist politics in Northern Ireland did not—as in Scotland—base itself on shared perspectives, values and interests, but rather forged an alliance of all and only Northern Protestants, uniting different everyday values, identities and beliefs in a unionism whose sole defining characteristic was the Union itself It brought together many diverse Protestant sub-groups into a unity of identification with the British state and, if some found cultural depth in its historical resonances and wide global reach, others focussed on culturally thinner and residual aspects—its anti-Catholicism, or its industry. Personal free world economic economic well-being well-being: south more progressive than north

Responding to unionist concerns

Public culture and the institutions of socialisation

AND INCENTIVISING CHANGE

Findings

CONCLUSION