http://www.tiscali.co.uk/news/newswire.php/news/reuters/2005/06/08/entertainment /euapprovesirish-languagefilmfundfornireland.html&template=/entertainment/feeds/ story_template.html

now they need to do the same criteria in the south for a tax break for newspapers/tv/movies/etc...60% is better than nothing (tho 75% would be better)

The sooner those in the north who have traditionally blocked reunification start identifying themselves more as irish and less as british the sooner they may vote to join up with the republic (provided the economy is still good and stable, violence has not re-erupted and they retain their passports for both states)

Antaine a chara,
The politics of Irish unification is a heavy-duty subject for this type of Forum. Centuries of differing cultures cannot disappear overnight. Some of the group you refer to love the Gaeilge no matter how well versed we are in it,but we are the very few and even today tread gentley with family and friends in that area. I do not think things will change in N.Ireland at least not in this generation.

A Uachtará na hÉireann has certainly been reaching out to Ulster Protestants these past few years and is very highly thought off which I can tell you is something BIG when it comes to North-South relationships. Ádh mór to her Excellency.

A Antaine, a chara.

I agree with Ultan that we are unlikely to see a seismic shift in northern politics in this generation. Changing demographics are more likely to change the politics of the north then changing attitudes. Although Catholic fertility in Northern Ireland was not as high as expected in the 2001 census, it was still higher than Protestantant fertility. The Protestant population is older, and consequently, has a higher death rate than the Catholic population. Catholic immigration is still greater than Catholic emmigration and Protestant net immigration. Therefore, the Protestant majority is slowly eroding.

The numbers in the first two columns below show the percentage of Catholics in the six counties in prior census data. The numbers in the last two columns show an extrapolation of this trend I computed using linear regression.

1911	34.4%	---	2011	42.7%
1926	33.5%	---	2021	44.8%
1937	33.5%	---	2031	46.6%
1951	34.5%	---	2041	48.4%
1961	35.6%	---	2051	49.9%
1971	36.8%	---	2061	51.4%
1981	38.5%	---	2071	52.7%
1991	42.1%	---	2081	53.9%
2001	43.8%	---	2091	55.5%

So after most of us are long dead, the Catholic majority might vote to join the Republic.

Northern Ireland’s Catholics and Protestants: issues in the 2001 census by Youssef Courbage, "Population & Societies," Institut national d’études démographiques, May 2003, No.390

(Message edited by lúcas on June 14, 2005)

Or we ship in Eastern Europeans and tip it to the right balance...

250,000 should do nicely...

Ultán,
can I ask if in your experience the learning of Irish by an Ulster Protestant allows them to be more amenable to some format of unity with the Republic?

I guess some Protestants (a few) would like to enjoin with us. I know that a larger number of Catholics are positively bent on the Union as it stands.

Come to think of it, I would like to meet some nationalist Protestants from the North East sometime. I have met a royalist Catholic once, but I think he was a pansy anyway, and liked the imagined glamour of the crown, so he cannot be too representative a figure.

I would imagine, tho, that both non-sterotypes are from the comfortable classes.

I'm thinking the shift will happen as those born after the last of the violence (for instance, those born today) are adults with children and grandchildren of their own.

as for being around in 2091...if "only the good die young" then I am a certified immortal ;-P

This langauge thing is bigger than any person or even generation. I figure we've got about 5 billion years until the sun goes nova, so there's time...there's time...

I just think that what has traditionally been an anti-irish sentiment (with regards to culture) in the north is the result of 1)fear ("we have to stick together against 'them'!") and 2) 400 years of active propaganda fostering division on purpose (by the crown) in order to keep order. as that policy goes by the wayside (hopefully) the plantation descendants will begin to more and more identify themselves as Irish, culturally...and I think that gusto for the language is an indicator of that...

whoops...almost forgot my point...given the civil equality guaranteed by law in the republic, there is technically nothing that says a protestant *has* to be a unionist - it's just tended that way due to fear and bigotry stemming from republican violence and british hatemongering.

many unionists of both stripes are unionists for economic reasons...don't forget that until the 1990s the republic's economy was nothing to envy. as that changes, economic fears will be mitigated as well...

the british government has gone from insisting that AOL ban gaeilge in chatrooms to requesting funding for grants to support gaeilge tv and film.

Robert,
I took some Gaeilge lessons in the 1950's and left N.I. shortly there after. I was never a Nationalist bent on unification. I just loved anything Celtic/Irish - hard to find in N.I. in those days - when I found there was more than the Anglo-Irish history I was being taught in school. I personally would like to see some form of unity but I am just a regular visitor these days.

Here are interesting articles regarding the learning of Irish by members of the Protestant Community in NI.

The first is a 1997 article

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/language/mccoy97.htm

The second is a 2004 article.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/language/pritchard04.htm

Well, I would hope everyone here believes in democracy, and given that the majority of the people in the six counties want to stay in the UK, no change is foreseeable.

Could I add that this is not just a catholic/protestant question. I know catholics both in the north and the south who want the division to remain. They have very different motives, but they both arrive at the same end result. I also know protestants who are very positive towards a unification. Finally I could add that most learners of Irish I've met, myself included, are protestants.

-I would hope everyone here believes in democracy-

In the context of Protestant ascendancy to power, and its machinations to hold power since the 17th century, democracy has found only bitter soil.

The 19th century saw repeated Irish voting for Home Rule. Not given. The councils running Tyrone and Fermanagh voted to remain in the South after partition, yet that was not respected, and they got bullied into the emergent northern state.

Protestant life in Ireland is founded on rape, usury, destruction, genocide, and callous arrogance. The sort of people who vote in Ian Paisley today called for Catholic genocide only a generation ago.

I'd never want any of that visited upon any Unionist community, but a misplaced arrogance still infects many northern protestants. Only last week while in the north, I was in a shop and bought a magazine, and in the mini-moment between paying and receiving the change, I said "thanks" to the lady in the shop. The hand that was about to lay the fiver change in my hand conspiciously darted out of my palm and smacked the monies on the counter. She gave me a bitter look, and turned to a local customer. It was my southern accent.

250,000 of the northern population works in the south. London transfers 5 billion euro in tax shortfall every year. How can beggars ride such a high horse?

while they would vote to stay there today, that doesn't have to be written in stone in the future...it seems that attitudes are softening as they are less a matter of life and death, and the economic situation in the south is less and less "undesirable" then there is a real possibility of a shift in the vote enough to swing it

political climate is such that the ira would never now be able to secure transition for the north...it must be done politically now, with a legitimate vote reflecting genuinely changed attitudes free from coercement...

Antaine,
I'm not saying that I have strong hopes for the north east to rejoin; it was the 'unfairness' of centuries of unionist arrogance been repayed today with such respect by Dublin, and fiscal support by London, that makes for a very puzzling mix when you perceive the recalitrance of the protestant population there.

If those who were (and are) opposed to the pogroms of the 60s and 70s came out to say they were sorry, that might be one thing. If they got off their backsides and contributed something to Britain, instead of embaressing themselves with nonscence about tradition, then they might be taken seriously, and not as the spongers they actually are.

The perverse thing is that if the Gaeltactaí die, Unionism will be the oldest tradition left on the island.

Actually, Republicanism originated in the Northeast among Presbyterians, and is several decades older than Unionism.

Not to mention various other religious traditions etc...

A Lúcas, a chara,

That's an interesting article that you show a link to above - thanks. Some observations from a fellow "curve fitter:"

1. In your table above, you indicate the percentage of Catholics for 2001 at 43.8%, but I think that value is for the percentage of people brought up Catholic, where as the percentage claiming Catholic as their religion for 2001 is 40.3%.

2. Although, for the 2001 census, the number of people brought up Protestant is listed as 53.1%, I think the pertinent parameter is the percentage of people claiming to be Protestant, which is 45.6%

For the year 2001, the Protestants didn't make up half or more of the population. They made up 45.6% percent compared to the Catholics at 40.3%, which is a difference of just 5.3%. Also, I don't know if a linear regression is applicable. Previous census data suggest the possibility of future spurts in the Catholics' population growth which may, in the not-to-distant future, shrink the 2001 census gap of 5.3% to some negligible amount. Also, as pointed out by other folks above, people don't vote just based on their religion.

I think that the possibility of a majority of people voting for re-unification may be sooner than later.

Le meas,

Dáithí

"I think that the possibility of a majority of people voting for re-unification may be sooner than later. "

I concur

I would imagine that the main reason a catholic (whether they still are or not) would vote for reunification would be due to a sense of history and cultural identity. The main reason why the same demographic would vote to keep the status quo would be economic, or viewing such a changeover as a "hassle"

I would also imagine that the main reason for a protestant to elect to stay would also be economic - however, right up to the recent past also a fear of violence and bigotry and being treated, well, the way they saw catholics treated in the north. Due to that, an identity as 'british' was engendered. Now that the violence is no longer happening, and hopefully fears of bigotry have been allayed by observation of the treatement of protestants in the south for the last 80 years, they are free to identify themselves as 'Irish' - especially since they are *not* treated as 'british' by your everyday brit (the scots identify themselves as 'scottish' - a distinct entity within the uk, so why not). as that identification gains acceptance and grows the day of that vote draws closer and closer until the main question at the time it takes place will simply be the economic one ("will we be shortchanged switching to the euro?" "is the republic's unemployment up for some reason this year?" etc). I forsee the children of todays adults (or *their* children) being the ones actually doing the voting...but I do think I'll live to see the first attempt at a vote - successful or not...

Aonghus,
yes I forgot about that, or rather did not conceive of latter day Republicanism as a direct decendant of the United Irishmmen, which there is evidence that it is.

Then again, the other day I seen in the library a book inferring nationalism as an outgrowth of the English Civil war and the enemy of both islands, Cromwell. I did not read it, but the stance seemed to be that concepts of national identity where brought over to Ireland.

Cromwells pounding compressed tribes into a nation, all right.

A Dhaithí, a chara,

O.K. Let me gobble your bait. Linear regression is not the best way to forecast when the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland will end. However, it concurs with the author's forecast that it will not happen in this generation.

Recall that linear regression, and geometric regression for that matter, is a static model while the fertility rates of the two populations are dynamic. In 1921 Catholic fertility rates were 50% higher than Protestant fertility rates. By 1991, the gap had declined to 31%, with Catholic women producing an average of 2.55 babies to Protestant women's average of 1.95 babies.

As you know, regression models give equal weight to recent and current data points. Forecasts based on the 1991 census predicted that Catholic population parity would be reached by 2021. However, the decline in birth rates continued. Catholic women in 2001 were only making an average of 2.05 babies while Protestant womens' average production dropped to 1.61 babies. The gap had fallen to 27.3%.

You overlooked one of the more glaring weaknesses of the regression model I gave above. It is a trend line based on a secondary set of data, percentage of population. If I were trying to defend this thesis for a degree, my advisor would not have allowed me to embarrass myself with such a simple model. He would have sent me back to the original census data. I indulged in the exercise above because it was the only sustained trend data the article gave. I also wanted a quick check on the author's prediction.

Even though the fertility data for the 2001 census is extracted from a subset of the entire survey, the author built a non-linear, dynamic model based on this trend of declining differential birth rates. He does not give any of the statistics except to show a graph of the forecasted populations in Figure 3. It shows the two populations becoming equal in 2041. My simple model showed 2051. That is close enough for me. I accept the author's preliminary conclusion.

In either case, it supports Ultan's contention that we are not likely to see unification in this generation. The author points out that if the Catholic fertility rate decelerates a little faster, or the Protestant rate decelerates a little slower, than preliminary figures here indicate, or both, then it might never happen.

(Message edited by lúcas on June 17, 2005)

"In either case, it supports Ultan's contention that we are not likely to see unification in this generation. The author points out that if the Catholic fertility rate decelerates a little faster, or the Protestant rate decelerates a little slower, than preliminary figures here indicate, or both, then it might never happen. "

but you're also assuming that catholics must outnumber protestants for reunification to happen. there's nothing in a protestant makeup that says they must be unionist. all that needs to be done is to convince enough catholics *and* protestants that it would be an economically sound decision that would leave both demographics protected and equal in the eyes of the law and their fellow countrymen - and *that* is what I think we may be tending towards faster than we give them credit for...

A Antaine, a chara,

quote:

but you're also assuming that catholics must outnumber protestants for reunification to happen.

You are making that assumption, not me. I am talking about demographics. Nationalists have argued for decades that demographics will offset the majority that separated the six counties. All I am saying is that the numbers do not bear out that belief in the short term. As John Maynard Keynes said, "In the long term we are all dead."

You scenario is plausible, to be sure, ach sin scéal eile. I wish it were the case. However, I have not seen any data to support it, short of parenthetical aruments that Protestant nationalists exist. Yes I concede that Jonas has met a few. So have I. Irish language enthusiasts are probably most likely to find such people.

However, Protestant nationalists are a tiny minority within the Protestant community in the North. Surveys repeatedly point out that only about 5% of the Protestant community would like to join the Irish Republic.

	1989	1990	1991	1993	1994
Protestants	%	%	%	%	%
Remain part of UK	93	93	9	90	90
Reunify Ireland	3	5	4	5	6
Other option	2	1	1	4	3
Don't know	2	1	1	1	1
Not answered	0	0	1	0	0

From Table 2 of 'Who Wants a United Ireland? Constitutional Preferences among Catholics and Protestants' by Richard Breen (1996), in, Social Attitudes in Northern Ireland: The Fifth Report

Catholics in the North do not exhibit this solidarity. As many as one third of the Catholic population would vote against reunifcation.

	1989	1990	1991	1993	1994
Catholics	%	%	%	%	%
Remain part of UK	32	33	35	36	24
Reunify Ireland	56	55	53	49	60
Other option	4	5	2	5	7
Don't know	7	6	7	10	8
Not answered	1	1	2	1	1

Also from Table 2, Ibid.

These are cultural attitudes that have been forged by centuries of bloody conflict between these two communities. I do not see emphermal economic conditions changing these attitudes in just a few short decades. So, much as I hate to say it, I still do not think we will not see reunification in this generation.

but there had been no cessation of violence for a decade before your most recent numbers. The ongoing violence on both sides surely played a major role in keeping the old prejudices alive. in a couple years, children born after the improvement began will be starting high school, those young enough at the time to not really remember anything but peace are already there.

They will soon be the voting adults, and in 30 years their children will be. To keep hatred alive, one needs to give it a fequent shot in the arm to continue to justify it and terrify people into playing along, and where real instances of 'justification' don't exist, artificial ones must be orchestrated.

I have been very surprised at how nicely both sides have been able to play with eachother since the signing of the Good Friday agreement. Personally, I have faith that the children of those who were adults at the time will be the ones to make the decision, but if not I have little doubt *their* children will have the courage to set right one of history's oversights...

besides, a move by any member of the UK to withdraw within the next 50-100 years (ahem...scotland, i'm looking in your direction) could destabilize the whole thing, resulting in NI perhaps being asked to vote between commonwealth/dominion status or reunification as the UK dissolves...

but one can only hope...