 Good afternoon, everybody. It's a pleasure to see you all here. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the director of research here at the Institute of International European Affairs. We're absolutely thrilled that Professor Brendan O'Leary is going to be helping us make sense of United Ireland in a few moments. But without further ado, I'm absolutely delighted to hand over to Professor Mary Murphy from UCC who's been good enough to chair this event. So thank you very much, Mary, and over to you. Thanks very much, Barry. And a very warm welcome to the IIEA this lunchtime. It's great to see so many people here and I know there are lots of people watching on Zoom as well. And a particular welcome to Professor Brendan O'Leary, who's been very generous in terms of taking time out of his summer schedule to talk to us. And I know this is the only public talk that you're doing during this particular trip to Ireland, so we're particularly grateful for that. Professor O'Leary is going to speak for about 20 to 30 minutes and 30. And then we'll go to a Q&A from the audience and from our audience online as well. So for those online, you can join the discussion using the chat function, the Q&A function on Zoom. And please feel free to send in any questions throughout the session as they might come to you. Today's presentation and the Q&A are both on the record, so it's important to say that. And you can also join the discussion on Twitter using the IIEA hashtag. So let me introduce Professor Brendan O'Leary. He's the Louder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and a Visiting Professor of Political Science at Queen's University in Belfast. He was also very recently awarded an honorary Doctorate of Arts from my own institution, University College Cork, because he is in fact a born Corkman. So this was in recognition, of course, of his work on Northern Ireland and on conflict resolution more broadly. So he's the author, co-author and co-editor of 30 books and collections. And he's written extensively on the Northern Ireland conflict. He's a founding member of Aarons, analyzing and researching Ireland north and south. That's the program run through the Royal Irish Academy. His three volume study, a treat, I can never say the word. A treatise on Northern Ireland, which received the James S Connolly Senior Best Book Prize of the American Conference on Irish Studies in 2020. And he's the inaugural winner of the Juan Linz Prize of the International Political Science Association for contributions to the study of multinational societies, federalism and power sharing. Professor O'Leary has also been a political and a constitutional advisor to the UN, the European Union, the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, the governments of the UK and Ireland, and to the British Labour Party before and during the Irish peace process. So I think I've possibly heard a version of today's presentation when Professor O'Leary visited us in Cork recently, and it was a tour de force then, so I'm sure we can expect the same today, but the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Mary, and thank you, Barry. It's an honor to be here in Northgate, Georgia Street. I've only got half an hour, so I'm going to be fast. And I hope you'll journey with me. The premise of my talk is that the end of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is visible. It's not certain, but it is a highly probable event of the next decade. I'm not here to recommend immediate referendums. I am here to recommend immediate preparation for such referendums. The next decade is another question that, sorry, the years immediately ahead are something I can talk about in Q&A, but I want to talk about referendums and Irish reunification strategy in the light of what we currently know about public opinion. The Good Friday Agreement, as all of you know, allowed for two possible futures, the maintenance of the Union or Irish reunification. For those of you interested in examining all the technical details attached to those questions, there's a working group on unification referendums on the island of Ireland. It is one of its co-authors, so is Dr. Tane Tannum in the audience. And I think, were you part of that too, John? I don't think so. May I recommend that for looking at technical details? There are two key choices for future Irish governments. Is there going to organize sequenced referendums in response to the northern referendum? Will there be a delay before there is a southern referendum? Or will the referendums be simultaneous? Both are allowed for in the Good Friday Agreement because the wording there is to concurrent referendums and concurrent doesn't mean simultaneous. The second key choice for future Irish governments is whether they propose a specific model of unification before the referendums, or instead leave matters to be decided after a vote-in principle in the two referendums and organize the constitutional convention for the shaping of the new Ireland. Those are two key choices. I will have something to say about the second choice in my presentation today. I'm going to focus on drivers of change in the north to begin with, though these drivers would not be as significant had there not been dramatic change in the south, particularly over the last 30 years. I'm not simply referring to the dramatic economic success story of the south. I'm referring to the dramatic liberalization of all aspects of social life in the south. The conjunction of changes north and south, I think obliged those of us who are serious to contemplate the big questions of reunification. So to begin with, the most important slow running driver of change in the north is undoubtedly demographic. This slide shows that the most recent census in the north demonstrates for the first time that cultural Catholics outnumber cultural Protestants, albeit by a small margin at the moment. But it's a reasonable expectation on existing demographic data that that gap will widen by the end of the decade. In terms of raw proportions of religious identification in the north, those who take their religion seriously, those who really believe or appear to believe in answering census questions. There's a dramatic picture here that shows that Catholics are growing in absolute numbers ahead of all other categories. There is some switch in the composition of the Protestant population, the Church of Ireland and Presbyterian populations are losing people to evangelical Protestants. That has no immediate political implications in my view, being evangelical doesn't necessarily make you a more hard line unionist, though that's the typical stereotype. So we're confronted with dramatic, but slow demographic change. And that of course feeds through eventually into electoral change. If we bear in mind this census data, we have to qualify it. It's obviously the case that being in favor of unification doesn't come automatically with a Catholic birth certificate, nor are all people very explicitly in one camp or the other. Similarly, the evidence of the Aaron survey reported in the Irish Times in last December and last January indicates that there are more Catholic unionists than there are Protestant nationalists. And it is true that there is a significant proportion of the population who neither identify as nationalist nor unionist and neither identify as Catholic or Protestant. So we do tend to break down into traditional family of origin identifications when posed the question of unification in surveys. So the point is, we're going to be confronted by the end of this decade by a less Protestant, more fluid electorate. The Irish Times last December as saying that only 28% of the north were firmly in favor of unification and thought the matter was closed. They did they ignored the fact that a striking 23% of the population did not know whether they wanted to vote in favor of the union or United Ireland. Most of those are cultural Catholics, and most of those in my opinion are persuadable in the direction of unification. So that's the claim I'm making that is based on census data. Just to make the argument a little bit more brutal. That's the grim reaper on the left. He comes for all of us. He especially comes for those of us at the age of 65 and over. I am 65. So I contemplated significance with more attention than I previously did the age cohort data from the census is very simple at the moment they haven't given it to us in five year cohorts. But you can see here that there is a cumulative Catholic demographic lead over cultural Protestants and other Christians in 2021 across the board. But that does not automatically transfer into a cultural Catholic majority in the electorate. But my claim is very simple absent dramatic change in immigration. There will be a cultural Catholic majority in the electorate by the end of this decade and probably earlier. You can see in the age bracket 0 to 14 that there's approximately a 60,000 cultural Catholic lead in that age band. All of those who are aged eight in 2021 in conjunction with those aged 15 to 18, sorry, 15 to 17 in 2021, they're going to join the electorate and they will wipe out the lingering net cultural Protestant advantage in the electorate. So that's the demographic basis for appropriate preparation in the period ahead. These slow demographic changes have manifested themselves electorally. I'm going to show you very quickly the results of the Westminster elections since 1997. Northern Ireland has 18 districts, they remain the same districts in this period, and you'll see that in 1997 the year before the Good Friday Agreement that Unionists dominated Northern Ireland with 13 of the 18 seats. By 2001, the West and the South had greened, particularly dark greened with Sinn Fein victories in the West, and the Unionist majority was reduced from from a previous 13 to 11. By 2010, looking at the right hand side of the screen, you'll see that the two traditional blocks had more or less equalized nine Unionists, eight Nationalists and one other in East Belfast. That was when Naomi Long defeated the DUP candidate. In 2019, we see the end of the Unionist majority in seats. Nationalists combined had had nine of the 18 seats in Westminster, with the Alliance Party gaining a seat in North down. That's the Westminster picture. That's been consolidated in the evidence of the last Assembly elections, which I won't report here, but the very recent local government elections which I've been able to analyze since being in Cork, Mary, so I don't always just repeat myself. This shows that there is that in those elections, there was a genuine tipping point for the first time, Nationalists outnumbered Unionists in local government in total first preference votes. The way in which you should think about the North going forward is as 4440 16 and not 4040 20, which is the typical media or journalistic cliche. And once it's been true, it now has to be modified in the light of demographic change here together with Jamie Poe, we evaluated all the independence, we looked at whether they were independent Nationalists independent Republicans Unionist loyalists or genuinely independent other other. That's how we arrived at this data. And if you wish to question it, download the article on the Royal Irish Academy website and send me an email. This is the picture in local government. After those elections, you'll see that there are four strong, strongly Nationalist councils out of the 13. There is by contrast, three, which are clearly Unionist, but three of the Unionist districts now have a 50% majority of counselors. That means in five years time, it's highly likely that they will lose control of each of those councils. They may still be the plurality block inside those councils, but they will no longer have a majority in those zones. Belfast according to our calculations has a 49.6% nationalist plurality. It would be reasonable to round that to 50 Belfast will be a nationalist majority city in the next set of set of elections in that city. Think about that. That's like the PLO winning in Tel Aviv. Belfast was a Presbyterian city is built by Presbyterians Catholics were broadly speaking migrants into that city. Their proportion of the population in Belfast fell from 1861 through until 1951. So this is a stunning transformation of the capital of Northern Ireland. And if you're a driver of change, you'll all be aware of in this room. It is of course, UK exit which sounds like a vomit projectile, otherwise known as Brexit, the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Now, this consequence, I think has all sorts. Sorry, this event has all sorts of unfolding consequences. I would draw your attention. First of all, to the impact it's had on the alliance block, which is pro European. It's had on young, more liberal Protestants, and the impact it's had on weakening the cultural Catholic acquiescence in a reformed union. The fact that the conservatives behaved so erratically and badly, and the DUP behaved so abominably has in effect intensified the cultural Catholic willingness to look at the merits of United Ireland. So those are three long run drivers of change. So what should strategy be, if you favor Irish reunification in the light of this unfolding background. There are all sorts of questions that need to be prepared and then a very short talk I can only focus on some of them. I think it's vital to focus on winning losers consent, which might be reasonably redescribed as winning graciously. Losers consent does not mean that you grant a veto to any community. But it does mean in light of the fact that the referendum rules are unambiguous, a simple majority in both jurisdictions will suffice for unification. It does mean that care has to be given to the idea of a narrow victory, electorally particularly in the north, and for accommodating the concerns and interests of unionists and loyalists. One third of unionists and loyalists or or Protestants in our surveys would appear to tick the box that they would find Irish reunification almost impossible to accept. Now you might ask what does that mean. It doesn't mean that they'll immediately engage in insurrection or bomb this beautiful city. It does mean that they will be profoundly unhappy and psychologically destabilized. So, any sensitive strategy has to bear in mind the possibility that there could be a future minority, roughly speaking one in 21 of the island, who would be deeply disturbed by a victory for unification. So, bearing in mind how to accomplish losers consent is a wise component of strategy. It doesn't mean, however, that so much attention has to be given to unionists and loyalist concerns that the base is lost those who favor unification in the north and south. They have to be catered for as well. And lastly, it's vital to look at the don't knows the pivotal that there are potentially the pivotal voters in the north, and possibly also in the south. In my view, it's sensible over the decade ahead to elaborate different models of Irish unification based on survey evidence Irish governments should select the option for unification that best meets the three objectives I've outlined, maximizing losers consent, consolidating among the base and winning the undecideds. That's what sensible modeling would look like. Now, if that work is done properly, it would allow for a model of the United Ireland to be ready in advance of the referendums. I won't go into any more detail on that in a moment, but that's the core logic behind what I'm presenting. In one survey, we argued that there's only currently two feasible models of the United Ireland, namely an integrated Ireland in which Northern Ireland would be dissolved, and a Northern Ireland in which a devolved Northern Ireland would persist. That's allowed for in the Constitution of Ireland article 1522. It was put there by devil era to allow for the possibility of the continuation of a storm and parliament inside the United Ireland. And it was created by the request of Michael Collins to the drafters of the Irish Free State to allow for a subordinate legislative legislature in the north. So even though it's not widely recognized that has always been a constitutional option in the south for various reasons we argue that a federal Ireland is not compatible with the existing Constitution of Ireland. So if there is to be an Irish Federation that would have to occur after unification or after a dramatic change in the existing Constitution. A confederation is not compatible with the Good Friday agreement, because it would mean creating two sovereign states on the island, and those are not the options available in the Good Friday agreement. So I'd like you to look carefully at this table on the screen. This table illustrates the views of Northern Ireland Protestants who would find a United Ireland almost impossible to accept. And the way to interpret the data on the screen is that where you see ticks and where you see lots of them. That's an idea that that's a proposition that makes these unionists more positive about Irish unity. Where you see an X and where you see lots of X's in particular, that's where they're particularly hostile to a United Ireland. And you'll see the way out in front is the preference to retain their British citizenship only that they not be obliged to become Irish citizens in the event of unification. You'll see too that they care strongly about an NHS style health service and that they're disposed well disposed to a secular or non religious education. Lower down the column on the the second column, you'll see that there is a mild preference for Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth for Ulster Scots being well protected, a new flag, and so on. But those items are really rather in response. And I'll come back to that point in a moment. I'm suggesting that it doesn't make a big difference to Protestant opinion. What does make a big difference to hardline Protestant opinion. What does make a big difference is retaining their British citizenship. Go to the bottom of the screen to the last row, and you'll see they're very hostile to an integrated model of unification. They're less hostile to a devolved model of unification. Now add in those who support unification in the north and in the south. I'd like you to focus on the fourth column. That's the citizens of the Republic who favor unification. And you'll see that Southerners don't like the idea of people remaining British citizens citizens only in the event of United Ireland. They are hostile to the idea of any unionist veto in a future set of institutional arrangements. They don't like rejoining the Commonwealth they don't like a new flag, they don't like a new anthem. They prefer an integrated model of integration to a devolved model of integration. You'll see that by contrast, northern cultural Catholics who favor unification are slightly more accommodating towards unionist proper positions and expectations. And you'll see stunningly that they are intensely in favor of an NHS style health service in the United Ireland that that appears to be the British institution that northern cultural Catholics are most pleased by, despite very considerable evidence of very poor performance, particularly over the the last decade. So add in the undecideds and here I will be very brief. If you look at the undecideds I'm going to assert to you, and I believe reasonably that the undecideds in the south are very much the same as those who favor unification in the south. So if you please those who are in favor of unification in the south, you will not be displeasing any of the undecideds. For practical purposes strategy has to focus on winning losers consent among hardline unionists and satisfying the base. So how would you do that. Very briefly, I suggest that the preliminary model of unification that would have to be on offer, if you wanted to win the referendums would be as follows a devolved rather than an integrated Ireland. It's much preferred by hardline unionists. It's acceptable to those who favor unification though it's not their first preference. Having unionists in government is acceptable to both of the key constituencies I've identified British citizenship only as an option it's already provided for in the Good Friday agreement. On downsides to that it would mean that unless the Constitution was changed such Protestants who identified as British only wouldn't get to vote in constitutional referendums and wouldn't get to vote for the president. But it is clearly a right available to them under the terms of the Good Friday agreement. The reason of some form would appear to be a sine qua non to winning at least some unionist consent and to persuading northern cultural Catholics and having some degree of accommodation of Ulster Scots. So I've broken that down into three categories political and constitutional design question, social policy questions and cultural accommodations. I don't think that this is written in stone. I think public opinion is subject to change, but currently, if you were proposing referendums tomorrow, and you wanted to win them. Then I suggest this would be the pattern of a United Ireland that would have to be proposed by a Dublin government. Clearly, I don't think questions of flags, anthems, or even the Commonwealth are as important as is sometimes alleged. The reason for that is when you ask hardline Protestants, would they make a difference to their views, they don't. So it's not clearly in the interests of those who favor unification to upset the base on these questions. But I do think there's room for institutional compromise on the question of the Commonwealth, and the rational compromise is for a united country to rejoin the Commonwealth. At the same time as Northern Ireland is being reintegrated into the European Union. That's a symbolic concession, which would have no important institutional consequences for the Republic. And it might lead to Irish athletes winning a few more medals in some international competitions. Thank you. So Unionists, of course, are going to have strategies in the period ahead. And they're rational. They will not engage at leadership level on the terms of the United Ireland, until they think they are going to lose, or they already have lost. It's very unlikely that they will engage until they do lose because they will demobilize their own supporters. So that makes it even more incumbent on a Dublin government to acquire detailed knowledge of Unionist and loyalist opinion beyond the leadership level to engage in all sorts of ways to ensure that they come up with a program for unification that will maximize the likelihood of losers consent. Now, why do I say that it's important to specify the model of unification in advance? Very straightforwardly, the public here, as well as in the north, have been completely burnt by the Brexit experience. I recall the referendum in 2016 posed a general question of principle, remain in the European Union, or leave. But leave was completely unspecified. And that meant negotiating what leave meant, preoccupied British public life, and still does preoccupy British public life. That has fed through to the Irish public north and south. If we look at hardline Unionist opinion, if we look at those who favor unification, and if we look at the undecideds, they all decidedly prefer to know the model of Irish unification in advance of a referendum. So if you want to lose the referendum, then you argue for postponing all the important questions to a constitutional convention after unification, you campaign for a vote on principle. That's the current state of public opinion. Now, of course, maybe in 2030, 2031 public opinion could shift on this matter. But at the moment, I think it's pretty baked in. That's the core argument I want to make and I'm going to conclude with a very short thematic, which I think is of some interest to our general question. It's a puzzle. Why are so few cultural Catholics in the north, not ardent unificationist, you would expect, given their historic experience of deep discrimination and exclusion under the Unionist regime between 1922 and 72. And their adverse experience of British direct rule, at least predominantly adverse experience that more of them would be nationalists than they are in favor of unification. There are, for example, Sinn Fein voters, solid Sinn Fein voters who are not in favor of Irish unification when asked questions in surveys. What does this mean? In my view, it means that there's a certain block of cultural Catholics who are Unionist by conviction. That's a very small category. But there are two other categories, those who are not aware of or are skeptical of the dramatic improvements of life and political pluralism in the Republic of Ireland, they haven't updated their knowledge of the Republic. But there's a third group that together with my colleagues in Aaron's, I hope to seek to identify, namely those who think that a united Ireland would be desirable, but they fear the short run costs of getting there. If you look at this graphic, I ask you to imagine in the thick green line, the business cycle, I ask you to imagine that the Republic of Ireland will consistently outperform the United Kingdom in terms of economic growth and generalized welfare. And I indicate here graphically what I call the Valley of Transition. If you're a Northern nationalist, you might believe that becoming part of a Republic of Ireland would be highly desirable, but you fear the short run costs of getting there. And that I think is another question to be addressed, namely strategy for persuading those who are fearful of Irish reunification that the short run costs will not be as extensive as people imagine. And that's where I think questions such as setting up at least part of the sovereign wealth fund to be ready for the costs of transition comes in. I have lots more to say, but I, I'm going to use the word finally because Mary will get over my shoulder. Finally, everything I suggest here is deliberately intended to be empirical. The judgments I've come to will will change if the evidence changes. But I think it's important to have evidence based arguments on Irish unification. Thank you for listening to me.