Joe Brolly on united Ireland question and what he'd do with the north

can i ask you about about um part of your role as a commentator in recent years in terms of columns and and public speaking has really been a lot around the future of northern ireland like you have you have taken a big interest involvement and naturally um in where it's going and where it's been over the last few years um you know you once said you're a dreamer you're a romantic do you do you dream of a united ireland no i don't at all i mean i think we should be blind to to nationality blind to sexuality blind to religion you know uh in the end the important thing is is empathy goodness all those sorts of qualities you know honesty courage and so it doesn't matter to me what form northern ireland or the north of ireland takes and i think that the problem now is that the the opportunity to create a secular shared northern ireland was squandered the eup were in the driving seat you know they were essentially uh the party of a megalomini a gay and paisley senior you know who destroyed the first power sharing agreement brought down the sunning deal agreement the oslo worker strike lambasted the anglo-irish agreement brought hundreds of thousands of people out on the street to say never and ever and ever i found a foundation a movement built on no you know and then destroyed david trimble when he signed the peace process and then having destroyed trimble and called him a traitor for doing it they probably took their seats in storm and then he and paisley senior became the first minister because a megalomaniac is only interested in himself and then when the opportunities were there to create a thriving secular northern ireland bringing goodwill from europe from america i shared society that was all squandered and i thought there was an opportunity for that that's been squandered so now what you've been happy with a situation like that yeah well yeah yeah as long as you know as long as there's fairness and equality which there is you know young protestant people aren't interested in creationism you know i mean edwin putz was elected he believes that the world was made in seven days so these guys eventually be marginalized and eventually yeah you know and and you know there are their attacks on on same sex their racism but the point is this that young protestant people now and in a well-educated society are are disaffected by that and we see this in the dup's poll numbers going down and although we're segregated because of our education system in the north and i mean my children for example wouldn't really know any protestants i've got to know a lot of protestant people because of the organ donation stuff and because of my work and so you know obviously the organ donation campaign depends on cross-community support and and you know there there can't be any question of sectarianism and it seems to me that the best solution is probably going to be enforced on us that the truth is that the british sort of conglomerate of scotland wales england and the north is starting to fall apart anyway scotland are going to be looking for independence very very soon i imagine there'll be an independence vote there within 10 years which will be free which will be for independence england has become an increasingly xenophobic they have no interest in the north anyway i mean it's a millstone around their necks so what what we could probably start with is a two-state solution in the north where the north would have its own independent parliament have tax raising powers and would be able to harness massive goodwill from europe and from america we don't need big sums of money to keep us going it's a very very small country you're talking about well million and a half people so it means it's a very very small country so you start with a two-state solution and i think that necessarily the first important thing would be to have a vote in the north on [Music] rejoining the european community that would be very welcome of course it would bring south and north together being that we're one physical entity and after that i would just leave it so you have a two-state solution to start with over time as all that old ridiculous sectarianism dies away and all the wounds in the north start to heal as they have been doing and the younger generations who are not interested in any of this nonsense are only interested in a practical way how do we how do we how do we put bread on the table all the normal questions how do we want to live you know we want same-sex marriage we want to have liberal liberal values in our society which we do want in the north and so you could then see over a period of time that they that that people would probably decide well there's not much point in having two separate um states here i mean i wouldn't i wouldn't be surprised if within 20 years there were there were some sorts of moves towards unification but i think that it's important that in the south there's a very light touch towards that southern governments are making the right sounds you know look it's the matter for the people of the north effectively i have to say i think that if it were properly worked out we were back in the european community um it could work very well financially from every possible perspective it could work very well

Channel: Virgin Media Sport

Views: 132,280

Keywords: Joe Brolly, United Ireland, Republic, Norther Ireland, Partition, Troubles, Bloody Sunday, Interview, RTE, Brexit, Island of Ireland, Maps, Map

Id: lpfb6-KG4yY

Length: 5min 50sec (350 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 03 2022