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In For and Against a United Ireland, renowned journalists Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride provide an accessible and measured approach to the polarized debate about Irish unification.
The prospect of Irish unification is now stronger than at any point since partition in 1921. Voters on both sides of the Irish border may soon have to confront what the answer to a referendum question would mean—for themselves, for their neighbours, and for their society.
Journalists Fintan O'Toole and Sam McBride examine the strongest arguments for and against a united Ireland. What do the words "united Ireland" even mean? Would it be better for Northern Ireland? Would it improve lives in the Republic of Ireland? And could it be brought about without bloodshed?
O’Toole and McBride each argue the case for and against unity, questioning received wisdom and bringing fresh thinking to one of Ireland’s most intractable questions.
For and Against a United Ireland was commissioned by the ARINS Project (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South), a joint initiative of the University of Notre Dame's Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Royal Irish Academy.
"Hundreds of years of historical hope and pain will weigh on a border poll campaign, and manifest themselves in the joy and the anguish, the thrill and the fear that will follow its result. We owe it to each other, and to all those who have suffered because of the tensions and passions aroused by these issues, to consider them thoughtfully and respectfully. Not everyone who went before us had this chance." —from the Introduction
Fintan O'Toole, member of the Royal Irish Academy, is a columnist with The Irish Times and advising editor of the New York Review of Books. His many books on Irish history, politics, society and culture include We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland. He has been awarded the European Press Prize, the Orwell Prize for Journalism, and the Robert Silvers Prize for Journalism.
Sam McBride is the Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Independent newspapers. He also writes on Northern Ireland for The Economist. He is a former Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter and has made a BBC film about the Northern Bank robbery. He is author of The Sunday Times bestseller Burned: The Inside Story of the 'Cash-for-Ash' Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite and is a regular broadcaster.
Introduction
1. The Case against a United Ireland by Fintan O’Toole
2. The Case for a United Ireland by Sam McBride
3. The Case for a United Ireland by Fintan O’Toole
4. The Case against a United Ireland by Sam McBride
Postscript
Endnotes
Further Reading
Index