I've read a lot of opinions that people on the island of Britain find a lot of the hard line unionists hard to stomach, waving the union jack whilst engaged in various rioting and protests. I think in the mainland UK there's a much greater acceptance of the realities of the past and an empathy towards Ireland and I think if there was a vote, the UK as a whole would vote to unite Ireland over retain the north as part of the UK. I have zero doubt about that.

It leaves the people of the North in a tough spot though, I think as much as us in the south would love to support a united Ireland, it's not feasible financially. I'm a graduate of economics and the North is studied as a basket case economy, in terms of any actual value, it has a massive, massive budget shortfall and always has. It's so heavily subsidized by the UK that I'm not sure the republic could afford it, let alone the fact that a huge portion of the jobs up there are UK Government jobs rather than enterprise, and that would have to be absorbed into the Irish civil service at big expense also. Then you have to consider the amount of trouble unionists would likely cause and the security cost of that also, it would be a complete shit show.

Sadly I think the North is destined to be in perpetual limbo, hate and brinkmanship will always, always be more important than progress. I think unionists would rather watch the world burn than ever allow Ireland to be unified once again. It's a bizarre and unfortunate situation.