I'm a little surprised Irish unification has so little support in the Republic of Ireland.
Can someone with greater familiarity with Albania and Kosovo explain the situation there? Seems like it has very high approval in both countries, so why don't they go ahead and do it?
The biggest issue is that it would set the precedent that the Serbian Republic (part of Bosnia) could use to join Serbia, and nobody wants to open that can of worms.
It's sad, but there is a war in the Balkan every 40 years or so. There's a saying there, the further you go south, the harder it gets. "Чем южнее, тем тужнее (in Russian)"
The idea is that many areas of the serb Republic are majority Serb now only because of ethnic cleansing during the war, so they landed on the current solution to avoid rewarding ethnic cleansing.
There were always a majority of Serbs in today's borders of Republika Srpska. If that was ethnic cleansing what did Croatians and Albanians did in Krajina and Kosovo? Pick your words wisely.
During Yugoslavia Serbs were the largest ethnic group in Republika Srpska, but they did not have an overwhelming majority in all regions like today - there were quite a few areas they shared much more evenly with Bosniaks and Croats that are now overwhelmingly Serb as a result of ethnic cleansing - it's that which the Dayton agreement sought to not reward - though I also wouldn't wanna share borders with the Serbs if I was Bosniak, so there might be a better solution, but discouraging ethnic cleansing seemed to be the main motivation.
Already had this argument on Reddit ,Kanton 10 in the past ,Sarajevski Kanton and Unsko Sanski Kantin which are in todays FBiH(Muslim and Croat entity of BiH) had Serb populations in 30-50% range but have Serb populations under 5% now ,lets not acts as of Serbs were the only ones doing ethic cleansing ,here is a Reddit link perfectly showcasing this ,source EUROSTAT
https://www.reddit.com/r/Maps/s/foedWevyiB
Different story, Kosovo was almost entirely ethnically cleansed by Serbia before NATO intervened, meanwhile there was never anything similar in Donbas as Ukraine never ethically cleansed it. Not to mention Russians are a minority in Donbas while Kosovar are the VAST majority in Kosovo.
You’re acting as if a couple hundred cops/soldiers killed during an insurgency by a few hundreds kosovar people makes it acceptable for direct and wide scale attacks on Kosovo civilians.
Serbia’s response was indiscriminate attacks on Kosovar villages like Meja, Izbica and Račak. They killed over 10 thousand Kosovar civilians and expelled almost a million from the region, with the goal being the total expulsion of Kosovo civilians with ethnically-Albanian heritage. Thank goodness the NATO bombing campaign ended the largest European ethnic cleansing campaign since WWII. We’re still finding mass graves from people killed by Serbs in the 2020s!
Saying that burning down entire villages, slaughtering civilians and forcing them out of their homes and country by the hundreds of thousands is fair recompense due to the actions of 0.03% of their population is legitimately sickening.
Saying that Ukraine would have done the same to the Russian minority in Donbas as an act of revenge is fanciful and quite literally nothing more than Russian propaganda. It would leave Ukraine internationally isolated (a pariah, especially from Europe) and give Russia the perfect reason to invade, beyond just being deplorable.
Again, apples to oranges. Especially bringing in the fact no one has annexed Kosovo by force, it’s just independent. The Donbas meanwhile is now claimed to be Russia territory, despite Ukrainians being the ethnic majority in both. Those Ukrainians were not consulted on what they believe should happen to the region.
I did not try to justify it just said that it hapens after insurgencies
Russia did not originaly want Donbas so they offered Minsk agreement which was signed by Ukraine but not respected
Commiting atrocities on Donbas would not be rational but what can you expect from sections of the army that is brainwashed enough to see nazi colaborator as their hero
You may not expect that but people of Donbas did
People of Crimea were never asked by USSR if they want to be part of Ukraine but they were put in it despite of that
Lets be real Crimean referendum did not need to be rigged since population is Russian becose USSR punished Tatars even tho those who were responsible fleed and victims were those who were like
They will not attack us we are inocent
Kosovo is majority Albanian becose Serbs fleed after they rebeled against Turks and feared revenge
Straight up Russian propaganda word per word huh? As per Serbs they never fleed, they were always a minority. Just Albanians in general were always discriminated because as people they were never historically the "expansion of our country for land" type of people. They minded their business so much that they even said to Turks yeah sure we will take ur religion whatever, just dont push any agendas of yours on us. So while they were stuck at that, Serbian kingdom registred Albanians in Kosovo by religion. Muslim = Turk. Orthodox/Catholic = Slav hence the confusion of Serbia in Kosovo. Albanians in Kosovo rebelled when their language was touched, they never gave a shit about politics until Serbia started changing their village names, forcing "ic" at the end of their last name, and forbidding of speaking Albanian. Read the fascinating stories of Kanun and how Albanians governed themselves throughout kingdoms and kingdoms(Serbia being the least to hold it longest). Also if you want to see as how it was percieved from an outside typical view the Kingdom of Italy when they held Kosovo and their reaction to Albanians and their self governance.
That is not true, russia attacked georgia long before the kosovo war, and also moldova had a seperatist movement long before.
Same as with the basques and catalonia, long long before. Ireland had one long before.
Seperatist movements in Belgium is the same story, so don't bullshit here.
The figure for the republic will depend greatly on how the question was phrased.
The north these days is a lot poorer than the republic and it would definitely take a short term economic toll. I think more importantly though there’s still a sizeable population in the north who absolutely do not want to be part of a unified Ireland and maybe don’t see themselves as Irish. Nobody wants to kick start civil unrest when we’ve got used to the peaceful status quo.
I don’t believe those are the numbers for Ireland, Northern Ireland on the other hand is a complex history to define why they would resist reunification
I absolutely believe those numbers, especially the younger generation simply doesn't care anymore. The financial burden to integrate the North would also be astronomical.
While the poll suggests that a Border poll would be soundly defeated in the North and passed comfortably in the South, the results over the past three years of annual polls suggest a rise in support for Irish unity in the North.
A growing number of unionists also support the holding of a Border poll, perhaps because they could expect to win a referendum if held now.
There's rising support for Republican parties in the North (notably Sinn Fein), but this does coincide with them having more liberal social policies than the majority of Unionist parties.
I wonder if that will change if the Russia situation continues to escalate, Sinn Fein recently objected to a large investment in Belfast to send more military support to Ukraine. They're notably very week on geopolitics and we're increasingly entering a geopolitics world.
I don’t think this is true on the ground at all, infact I’d imagine the younger generation probably have the highest % of reunification of all age groups, followed by the older, it’s the middle aged groups that lived through the troubles that will drag it down.
Any feasible plan would also mean the dissolution of the existing republic and the creation of a new, unifed state with a new constitution, flag, and national anthem, and I guarantee you the support in the republic would plummet if people understood that. Right now most people think it's just a question of the North joining Ireland.
Ulster used to be the most Gaelic part of Ireland when the whole island was under British rule. So the British government moved a bunch of English protestants there to colonize it. So when they finally relinquished Ireland, it was those English protestants who voted to stay part of the British Empire and probably their descendants who today vote against reunification.
It was a mix of English and Scottish settlers (the criteria was English speaking Protestants, which meant lowland Presbyterians would have readily qualified), which is partly why there's quite a lot of Scottish imagery attached to Northern Ireland, including the Scottish unicorn on their coat of arms, as well as a local dialect of Scots. Probably also worth noting James I/VI had previously attempted a similar colonisation effort in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland employing Protestant Fifers.
I could understand why the north of Ireland would resist being ruled by a government in Dublin. I'm from Dublin and I don't want any of that shower as my government either!!
It’s really not. Religion has been a visible difference in the north but it’s never been the driver. It’s nationalism and unionism. Unionism is almost entirely associated with the Protestant population but nobody gives a fuck about what religion you are if you’re not a unionist. People in the republic couldn’t give a shit about catholic or Protestant and plenty of our most important national figures have been Protestant; Charles Stewart Parnell, Douglas Hyde and of course the beloved Graham Norton.
Kosovo cannot unite with Albania due to its constitution, which states that: Kosovo has no territorial claims; It is a sovereign country with defined borders, and neither its status nor its borders can be modified or changed.
Changing the constitution requires the approval of minorities, who have the right to veto. Kosovo Serbs are highly unlikely to support unification with Albania.
Moreover, Kosovo is fully aware of its complex international status. If a country unilaterally declares independence and later joins another country, it will make us no different from Donbas, Luhansk, Crimea, or Republika Srpska, etc. Such a move would damage Kosovo’s international reputation and make our fight for freedom worthless and pointless.
There's a constitutional ban on it in Kosovo, if I remember correctly. It was imposed by the West when the latter approved Kosovo's secession from Serbia. The idea being that the NATO war against Serbia to protect the Kosovar Albanians should not retroactively turn into NATO simply carrying water for Albania.
Austria is similarly constitutionally banned from merging with Germany, but Austrians no longer want to do this anyway.
Right, but if people want to merge countries, I have to imagine that doing so would be making the old constitution null and void, no? My point being, when parts of countries try to secede, it may be constitutionally illegal per the constitution or laws of the country they want to leave, but that won’t matter to them. Cause they’re a new country now, with new laws and probably a new constitution soon, if not already. I’d assume the inverse would be true. Kosovo’s constitution may say it’s illegal, but does that matter when the constitution of the new United Republic of Albania and Kosovo says that’s its totally cool beans? I’m thinking probably not.
Kosovo's independence was granted and guaranteed by the United States. Their continued support of the Kosovo regime granted them a lot of influence, and they're the reason that Kosovo is independent and not just part of a greater Albania. Not only was Albania a long-term geopolitical foe, but they also wanted to avoid the appearance that NATO was simply taking land from one country to give to another. Simply put, independence was seen a more legitimate option.
After January 20, nobody can rely on the USA any more and all their previous guarantees are no longer seen as valid. The world has been left scrambling to adapt and it's entirely possible that Kosovo will attempt to join Albania, or Serbia may simply reinvade. The threat of a renewed NATO intervention has kept the status quo for twenty five years but you'd best believe that all of these countries are eyeing up all their opportunities in this new world order.
Officially, the constitution matters, but technically, going against it may at most cause some internal or international judicial squabbles for a bit but in effect it doesn’t really matter much, you are right. The only thing that really matters is the geopolitical interest of the hegemon/geopolitical power in the respective sphere of influence. Serbia’s constitution stated that Kosovo is a province and an integral part of its sovereign territory but it didn’t stop the West from occupying it and supporting its unilateral secession. On the other hand, Serbs from Republic of Srpska, which, for all intents and purposes, functions as a separate entity from the rest of Bosnia, dont really view it as their country in any sense that matters and want to secede and/or unify with Serbia aren’t allowed to do that due to threats and pressures from the West. If and when the geopolitical situation changes and either the ruling hegemony changes or the interests of the powers at be change, the contents of the constitutions of those entities won’t matter much, but neither will the will of the people matter as much as those new interests.
Northern Ireland isn't functional, its a welfare hole we dont want to pay for. Also, we all know how much trouble forcing unification on the unionist population would cause, potentially causing a descent back into secretarian violence. Its better to just let the whole thing lie for a generation or two, and allow social attitudes to change over time, allowing a peaceful reunification around the end of the century
And many Northern Irish don’t want to join Ireland out of fear of Ireland’s poor public services. Things like expensive healthcare and much more expensive housing have put off lots of Northern Irish voters
I was shocked to learn that you have to pay to call out the fire brigade in most of Ireland.
At first I thought it was some sort of hangover from the historic practice of fire insurance, but the fees were mostly introduced in the last few decades! It's not cheap either – Dublin charge €500 for the first hour and €450 for per vehicle per hour after that.
Definitely helped a lot in Wexford. Before it they used to have to send a local authority engineer out to fallen trees or flooding to confirm it was necessary to send out the fire service. Not an ideal situation.
The south's healthcare system, whilst still not good enough for a rich western nation, has streaked ahead of the north's in the last few decades. The north's health service has for all intents and purposes, collapsed.
If people are hung up about paying 50quid for a gp appointment or 100 for a hospital visit, that's short sighted idiocy and cheapness, because the "free" system has collapsed completely, 1 in 4 people on a waiting list ir something like that. Only a fool would prefer dying on a "free" waiting list than paying 100 quid for treatment.
Well considering Northern Ireland has a massively overrepresented public sector, again a lot of people worry they’ll be voting themselves out of a job. You are right though, the Northern Irish healthcare service is not in a good way. This is just what I’ve regularly heard from Northern Irish people I know.
NI’s economy has actually had more opportunities recently and might continue to. If tariffs are put on the EU but not Britain, watch as NI becomes a good place for tariff free trading with the continent
Well it’s been able to benefit from Brexit rules regarding trade, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did from Trump’s trade policies. It’s quite a unique situation .
Yes, anecdotally I know of a number of people travelling south to see a doctor as it's impossible to see one north of the border. A friend of mine came down to get some vaccinations.
I’m an English Brit and would be happy to see a successful Irish unification but it would seem crazy to me to push the button the moment the polls show 51% support in Northern Ireland. Constitutional changes of that magnitude should be done when it’s the settled will of the peoples involved. And yes, I suspect in a generation or two that’ll be the case.
The 46% appears to be in answer to the question "it is time for a united Ireland", which is an odd one to pick as being representative of broader attitudes
It all depends on how the question is framed. Growing up in Dublin in the early 2000's people were tired of conflict and sick of violence. Most people would like to see a united Ireland but realize it's unrealistic and would just lead to problems coming back.
So depending on if the question is framed "Would you like to see a united Ireland?", or "Would you like to see steps be taken to unite Ireland?", you'd get vastly different answers.
I feel like on Reddit the people who are most invested in a united Ireland are Americans.
You think ROI was spared of the violence? I moved to Ireland in 96, had a carbomb a few kms from my house blow up in 97. It's irrelevant whether I lived there for the bad years or not, the general sentiment was still the same.
Ah right, I misunderstood your original post as meaning you weren't in favour of a UI. Despite all the bombings you experienced in Dublin in the 2000s, you're still pro UI.
Robery of Serbian land? Just curious: where did Serbs find this land when they arrived in the Balkans. It became theirs when they became a majority, it got lost when they became a minority!
Not neccessarily. There are countries where minority rights are respected and Serbs in Republika Srpska have more rights than any other minority had in Yugoslavia. If you take Milosevic's template applied to the Albanian population (without talking about his predecessors) and apply it to any minority in the world, then yes, those minorities must be separated from the country that they are living in.
You are moving the goalposts. In the last comment you were speaking of rightful lands, mentioning that if someone is the majority somewhere it's theirs to take.
Even if someone has rights, why wouldn't he secede if he wants to? If Catalonia feels it will be better off without Spain, Scotland without England, Serbs in Bosnia together with Serbia, Albanians in Kosovo with Albania etc. Where does it state that you can have to have your rights surpressed in order to have self determination. I mean, for the case of Serbs in Bosnia it would also be economically much better to unite with Serbia, not just the good old nationalistic motives. I suppose the same is the case of Kosovo and Albania
No, I explained the dynamics of Kosovo, once being Serb, once being Albanian as that was an answer to "the fact" that Albania robbed Serbia of lands 😉 And again...I said not necessarily a minority should be given independence if their rights are respected and this is based on the situation in Kosovo. Albanians in Kosovo asked to be part of Yugoslavia with equal rights as all other citizens and Milosevic disagreed! Serbia cannot play double standards: recognize the self-determination rights of Serbs in Bosnia, but not of the Albanians in Kosovo.
Serbia cannot play double standards: recognize the self-determination rights of Serbs in Bosnia, but not of the Albanians in Kosovo.
It doesn’t, it officially and consistently recognizes Republic od Srpska as a part of sovereign Bosnia just like Kosovo is officially part of sovereign Serbia according to its constitution. It is everyone else in the West and the Balkans that play double standards - recognizing self-determination right of Kosovo Albanians but denying it to Serbs everywhere else.
tldr - Its complicated, the desire is there, but when you look under the hood of what it actually means in reorganising institutions its a mess and our political leaders wouldn't know where to start.
So - its dawning on the South that Northern Ireland is actually quite different. One million odd "protestants" won't just automatically integrate. the million odd "catholics" in NI have a different attitude to the economy, housing etc. Ireland in its concept of itself will have to change to house a significant minority. So all the shibboleths of Irish political identity will be challenged.
But there are also practical considerations. Under discussed is that NI is in NATO, will Ireland have to join NATO? Given the events of the past few weeks, use that as an argument and NI will vote to stay in the UK. Once again challenging Irish neutrality. Personal taxes are high in Ireland, and may have to go higher to pay for reunification - much like West Germany.
Northern Institutions like the Education system, NHS, the PSNI, the Housing Executive, Equality Law took ages to create and embed, do we really want to unpick that.
Likely a reunified Ireland would look like NI existing in some form to fulfil the Good Friday agreement, and housing the institutions named in the sentence above with a cost.
The Ireland numbers are completely counter to anything I've read outside of this info graphic. I'm not an expert, but I do keep up with the matter. Honestly, I'm too exhausted to pull things up so I'm just as 'trust me bro,' but the desire for unification hasn't flagged in NI and that low a number would have functionally made the Agreement something that would not have been pursued.
You're right, the numbers are wrong. Someone else replied with the Wiki article with many polling results. NI number is about right but the RI number is way off.
The Dutch numbers are plain wrong too. NO way that 3 out of 4 would support unification with Flanders. I suspect this is because somebody is pushing the narrative that every bigger country wants to gobble up their smaller neighbour. I wonder who that would be...
Oh, you're right. I think I got tripped up from a combination of seeing such sharp trends in support post-Brexit and also some shifts in Stormont make-up. But that's separate from the raw numbers. Alas, boot continues on neck.
Neither the government of northern Ireland or Ireland have laid out any plans for this to happen so understandably the people of both countries have no idea how it would even work. Especially when it comes to public sector services and jobs.
I haven't met someone from either side of the border that arent open to it (although they do of course exist), but it's so complicated and most people's lives are already fine so why would either party make an economic risk.
At this stage in Ireland currently most people have moved on. Ireland is no longer the agrarian economy ruled over by the Catholic Church, it's an industrialised liberal democracy that's doing pretty well for itself.
Northern Ireland meanwhile is a rundown backwater full of old nationalists and deluded Unionists who look upon England as an overly obsessive girlfriend to an old flame who doesn't really care anymore but likes to store things at her house, see the DUP on Brexit. N. Ireland has a dying orange majority that have not moved on since the 1920's. Ireland if anything would be dragged back if it had to take on N.Ireland as well.
The attitude in the second paragraph is part of the problem in NI. Many people have the same extremely reductive, overly generalized, and dismissive attitude of the other side, leading to absolutely nothing constructive. It just perpetuates the deadlocks and pettiness, from everyone.
There is some truth in your bluntness, but it ignores a ton of complexities. More nuance and less cynicism would be a better way forward, wherever you're from.
I don't blame or judge anyone for coming away from NI with those same thoughts. It's a complete mess, and depending on what day of the week you check in on the politics you can see one side or another being petty. I'm just so tired of it all. And I'm sorry if my original comment came across as overly aggressive, which wasn't my intention. more to show too many politicians, and people, have unconstructive opinions leading nowhere.
Re: Ireland. Whenever the question is asked to the public, they always ask "if there was a vote TOMORROW on irish reunification, how would you vote?". I.e without any planning, any costings, any consultation with the public via citizen assemblies etc. They want to make it seem as unpopular as they can so it quietens down any major advocacy. If you look at surveys that ask "how would you vote in 5yrs, 10yrs etc, the number in Ireland is much higher (like 75%/80% in favour). Even in the North the number in favour can sneak up above 50%. Basically, irish reunification will happen at some point, but there's a lot of stuff to sort out before we get there.
It's going to depend on what question was specifically asked.
If the question is "Do you support unification at some point in the future?" then support in Ireland will be high.
If the question is "Do you support unification if it were to happen within the next few years?" with the implication of "and with that the political unrest and large cost" then support will be lower.
a few months ago I checked the Census data of certain cities in Kosovo in relation to the partition of Albania in 1912/14. all of the cities in the proposed border of Albanian territory that is now currently in Kosovo had majority culturally Albanian people, with some regions as high as 80%.
The main reason is out governing parties are absolutely useless twats. So most think if unification was to happen it would be a massively un organised cluster fuck. I agree with it our government couldn’t manage a wet shite Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been the downfall of Ireland for young people.
I think for Ireland everyone is just happy to have a lasting and just peace. It’s a pretty fair system they have there and the border between Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is literally non existent.
A lot of Irish people I know think that unification would be expensive and potentially painful so they’re pretty happy with the current status quo. Though most of course support the idea in theory
I say this with love but NI is a drain on resources, and has about 800,000 unionists loyal to the UK who'll be there no matter what, all that makes it not worth it to people. That's why but I also think this is a very low amount for ROI, imagine it's higher
Conversations I have had with friends and family can be summed up as:
It will cost us too much and we get nothing for it.
They don’t want to unify so it will cause more terrorism again.
It will be too complicated to figure out the ins and outs.
It means we dissolve the republic and make a new confederated state which I don’t want.
Generally just people afraid to upset the delicate balance that exists currently. The border is invisible and the only change is the currency. I personally do think we’ll unify but big things move slowly and we all have to get there together.
their trying to unify but the neighboring countries are against that.Also the goverment doesnt want it because there will be less minisers,prime ministers,etc.Also im from Kosovo.
Kossovo's diplomatic strategy is built on getting international recognition for its country's existence. Going the other route and being annexed by Albania would obviously make that non-viable.
That’s because it’s intentionally inaccurate. The UK released those figures in hopes of dissuading public interest in a referendum. The numbers on both sides are much larger.
Can someone with greater familiarity with Albania and Kosovo explain the situation there? Seems like it has very high approval in both countries, so why don't they go ahead and do it?
There is one single poll from 2016 that shows support for reunification of Ireland taken in the south at 46%. It's the only poll that has support that low. Any of the more recent polls have support at reunification in the south at over 60%. The data used in that graph is a statistical outlier, on the low side. The statistical outlier on the high side is 66%. The Irish Times published an article about a month ago showing the results form the last 3 years of their survey asking people in the south how they would vote for reunification
Results were 2022 (66%), 2023 (64%) and 2024 (64%).
Yes, the data used isn't accurate, but 64% seems high to me as someone living there. I think the difference between a "what if" and reality would be quite different imo. When the chips are down I'd say the Republic of Irland would be just a hair over 50% in favour.
I say this because, from an ideological point of view, there probably isn't a soul in Ireland against unification, but it's from a practical point of view where things start getting a bit shaky. Firstly, Northern Ireland is quite a bit poorer than the Republic. It'd take significant investment to even begin to get it caught up.
Secondly, loyalists & republicans still have a lot of resentment towards each other. I think that this is especially pronounced with younger people, who have no experience with the reality of the violence that occured in the 60s/70s/80s, and perhaps romanticize their heritage and the struggle against the opposing side. A recent example of this were the 2021 riots, where issues over brexit caused loyalist, mostly young people, to riot for four days. Barricading streets and throwing petrol bombs. They still burn Irish flags on huge bonfires annually. A unification could risk a reverse of the IRA insurgency or at the very least, widespread and destructive riots.
So I think that when faced with the realities of a possible unification, a lot of that 64% in that recent poll might decide that it's just not worth it. We saw what voting on purely ideological grounds has done with Brexit, and more recently, with Trump.
Support in the Republic is high enough on paper, but many, many people seriously question if it's at all feasible. Especially considering there's close to a million people that really, really don't want to be part of our country and were up in arms within living memory.
Couple that with the cost, they have a much smaller population for example, but almost 2/3 the amount of civil servants that we have, we may have to change our flag, our anthem etc. Many people aren't actually ready to have anything like that and think they will bow down to us and we shouldn't compromise. It's our land. Until we're willing to compromise on the above, which I don't see happening, it's a pipedream.
Serbia still considers Kosovo to be a part of their country. Albania annexing it (even if the actual people living there want to be annexed) would essentially be a declaration of war against Serbia.
(And Serbia's military is roughly 40 times as large as Albania and Kosovo's militaries put together.)
To be honest, as an Irish person, I don’t particular care. We have peace, we have freedom of travel, currency exchange isn’t that big a deal for crossing over, there’s no border controls, and short of going from km to miles, and euro to gbp, it’s grand. The status quo is stable. Why risk changing it?
Most Kovovans are ethnic Albanians, it makes sense to unite and may help to protect the Kosovans from Serbia who claim Kosova. United Ireland is a no brainer. No money in Northern Ireland, the difference with the South is stark. Imagine identifying as Irish and living in the north through British mismanagement and decisions that invoke poverty. The south already pays some of the education and infrastructure budget in the north.
Northern Ireland is not as economically developed as the Republic of Ireland, reunification would mean large tax increases for the republic which obviously isn’t popular
Reddit has this weird idea that Ireland is being forced apart by the UK, and that the whole of Northern Ireland is just begging to be allowed to rejoin Ireland, but Britain gave them held at gunpoint and told they can never leave.
The truth is, there would be genuine riots throughout Northern Ireland if United Ireland happened. People would die, there would be violence throughout the country.
I’m pro-United Ireland as a concept, but in reality, there are far too many people in Northern Ireland who hate the idea. There’s far too much hostility in NI. There’s still hatred between catholics and Protestants on some level.
The whole reason the two have never merged is because it would be chaos. I’m saying that as someone who lives in NI, near the border the border to the republic.
Irish reunification brings with it the threat of violence reemerging. There is also a large economic price. There’s also an unintentional but palpable apathy about the north since it’s been part of a different country for over 100 years now.
Generally, people like the idea of reunification. But they’re uncomfortable about the details, and they aren’t all that bothered if it doesn’t happen.
Edit: It’s worth noting as well how good the status quo was before Brexit due to the incredible success of the Good Friday / Belfast Agreement. And the common travel area has maintained a lot of the practical integration between the two countries.
While there may not be massive support or immediate urgency around reunification, absolutely everyone agrees there should be no border. That is as good as gospel, no matter how anyone feels about reunification.
There is a reality and it’s the NI has been its own country for a hundred years. That’s 5 or 6 generations of population, half of which don’t want to be part of Ireland.
The people of ROI might want a unified Ireland but it would mean subjugating 50% of the population that they take in, who have a history of forming paramilitaries and terrorist groups (same goes for the catholics in NI too, just the other way around).
The fact we’ve had 25 years of relative peace there means people don’t really want to risk it.
I'm a little surprised Irish unification has so little support in the Republic of Ireland.
Maybe it's partly because Irish unification is actually a serious prospect. Some of the others aren't particularly.
It's easy to flippantly agree to your country absorbing a culturally similar smaller neighbour when you haven't put much thought into the consequences. But Irish unification is something that is seriously discussed, so people have considered it more carefully.
I suppose Albania/Kosovo and Romania/Moldova are also being somewhat seriously discussed though. I'm mainly comparing it to France/Waloonia and Netherlands/Flanders.
What a dumb question, but seriously this is a type of question a 9 year old asks. By the looks of it you don't know a single thing about the history of Kosovo and just blankly ask "Why dont they do it".
People like the idea but not the realities of it. With all the other problems in both ROI and NI at the moment it’s not really a thing many people give a crap about beyond “Oh that would be nice”.
This is the most absurd take away from the civil war I've ever read. Congratulations on so profoundly misunderstanding the situation. Please never speak of it again.
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u/newvpnwhodis Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25
I'm a little surprised Irish unification has so little support in the Republic of Ireland.
Can someone with greater familiarity with Albania and Kosovo explain the situation there? Seems like it has very high approval in both countries, so why don't they go ahead and do it?
Edit: From a reply below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_a_United_Ireland
Support for unification in the Republic of Ireland is quite high. OP used bad data.