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We it feels like live in an increasingly politically polarised world, and perhaps the division of the island of Ireland between the Republic and the United Kingdom is a subject with a longer and more violent history of polarisation than any other “domestic” issue within Britain and Ireland.
Therefore the task O’Toole and McBride have given themselves, to write dispassionately at turns on either side of the argument is a brave one.
It runs the risks of becoming platitudinous and dim, but they remain insight and engaging.
They both, separately, make the case For and Against – they are not arguing with each other, not even with themselves. They put forward sound reasoning in favour of unification of the island of Ireland in a single state and sound reasoning in favour of Northern Ireland remaining a part of the United Kingdom. They do offer uncomfortable truths to the advocates of either outcome, but they find no insurmountable reasons against either outcome.
What they perhaps show, and what I guess those of us that have lived from the Scottish independent and the EU Exit referendums should really already know, is that these big constitutional questions can not be reduced to Benthamite calculus – they will always be decided more by the heart than the mind.
Does that make the thinking they have don’t irrelevant, not at all – just because you are going to let your heart lead you doesn’t mean you should thought seriously about the practicalities...
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