From Platitude to Realpolitik; Challenging Generic Designations

Abstract

McKearney examines whether the changing make-up within the North’s population will also mean an end to partition followed by the political reunification of Ireland. While most northern Catholics have a shared experience (or at least a shared folk memory), their experiences have not always been identical. As with any community, there are differences shaped by class, by family and even by location. How this group of people will react to future happenings will be determined as much by external factors as by residual historical memory. Issues such as Brexit, Scotland’s growing disenchantment with London and economic conditions in the Republic are all bound to influence opinion in the North. He poses the question, therefore, whether a milder and more accommodating form of Unionism might persuade the Catholic bourgeoisie to remain within the UK, if indeed that state survives.