US-based Sinn Féin support group places ads for vote on Irish unification
A US-based Sinn Féin support group has placed half-page advertisements in the New York Times, Washington Post and other US newspapers calling for a referendum on Irish unification.
Friends of Sinn Féin placed the ads on Wednesday to rally Irish-American support behind the party’s push for a referendum in Northern Ireland.
Titled “A united Ireland – let the people have their say”, the ads ran in the runup to St Patrick’s day next week, when the Biden administration and members of the US Congress will celebrate ancestral and political ties to Ireland. Full-page versions appeared in the Irish Voice and Irish Echo.
The media blitz came as Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, and the European commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, were to brief the Friends of Ireland Congressional caucus over the UK government’s unilateral decision to give businesses in
Northern Ireland more time to adapt to post-Brexit rules.
Sinn Féin hopes to create a sense of momentum and inevitability about a referendum in a year which marks the centenary of Ireland’s partition and the creation of Northern Ireland.
Catholics in Northern Ireland are expected soon to outnumber Protestants for the first time, a seismic demographic shift, and post-Brexit tumult has raised question about the region’s position in the UK.
The ads said now was the time for an inclusive, informed and respectful discussion about a “new Ireland” that would undo the damage of partition.
“As Americans, we call upon our government and public representatives to urge the British government to set the date for the unity referendum.”
Now was the time for the people of Ireland to have their say, it said. “With your support, we can be the first generation of Americans to visit a free and united Ireland.”
The Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Irish American Unity Conference and the James Connolly Irish-American Labor Coalition added their logos to the ads.
Under the 1998 Good Friday agree
ment the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary must call a referendum when it appears likely that most people would vote in favour of a united Ireland.
However, the precise conditions that would trigger a vote remain unclear, an ambiguity that suits the UK and Irish governments, which have little appetite for a referendum. Arlene
Foster, Northern Ireland’s first minister and the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, recently said a referendum would be “absolutely reckless”.
Sinn Féin, which is surging in opinion polls in the south, hopes to prod the Irish government into action. “It’s a very clear challenge to the Irish government that now is the time to plan, now is the time to make preparations for constitutional change,” Michelle O’Neill, the party’s Northern Ireland deputy first minister, told RTÉ. “Everybody can see this is going in one direction.”
Most people in Northern Ireland wish to remain in the EU, which could tilt them towards Irish unity, but even nationalists worry about the economic cost and losing the NHS.
According to a recent Sunday Times-commissioned opinion poll just over half of people in Northern Ireland want a referendum on unity within five years. Of those surveyed 47% wanted to remain in the UK while 42% favoured a united Ireland and 11% were undecided. Among people under the age of 45 supporters of Irish reunification led by 47% to 46%.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, a parliamentary member of Ireland’s ruling Fine Gael party, said the ads raised questions about Sinn Féin’s “dodgy” funding and would stoke division in Northern Ireland.
“While the Good Friday agreement recognises the aspiration of a united Ireland, the agreement also calls on us to dedicate ourselves to the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual trust. This has yet to be achieved.”