“There will never be a united Ireland in my lifetime or that of my children” claims Fianna Fáil senator John Manley
Posted By: January 15, 2022
“SOME KERRYMAN, HE … SOME IRISHMAN … GOD BLESS THE MARK”—FR. SEAN MC MANUS
“There will never be a united Ireland in my lifetime or that of my children” claims Fianna Fáil senator John Manley.
Irish News. Belfast. Saturday, January 15, 2022.
A Fianna Fail senator has said there won’t be a united Ireland in his lifetime – or that of his children – and has claimed his view is reflective of a majority of his party colleagues.
Ned O’Sullivan (71), who was last week appointed to his Party’s Committee on The North and the Good Friday Agreement, said anybody who believes the Border will disappear in the medium-to-long term is “living in cloud cuckoo land”.
The Co Kerry senator last year clashed with Ireland’s Future chairman Niall Murphy during an Oireachtas committee.
Mr. O’Sullivan questioned if the civic nationalist group had links to Sinn Féin, which it denied.
In his latest remarks, reported in the Kerry’s Eye newspaper, he said there were “one million people in Northern Ireland who don’t share the aspiration of a united Ireland”.
“There will never be a 32-county united Ireland that we grew up and dreamed of,” he said.
“It won’t happen in my lifetime or the lifetime of my children. A border poll would be a recipe for disaster.
“We haven’t had a united Ireland for 100 years now and violence didn’t work.”
The senator said those who believed support for Irish unity would be above 50 percent in a referendum were “living in cloud cuckoo land”.
“You’d have one million unionists part of a united Ireland. If unionists have proven anything it’s that they are resilient,” he said.
The Fianna Fáil veteran said that true republicanism was more than “somebody inside a pub singing Sean South from Garryowen”.
He said his great uncles were jailed during the War of Independence and the Civil War.
“But I don’t think those people thought through fully the consequences of a united Ireland in the traditional sense,” he said.
He said his views were reflective of a majority of his party colleagues and that alongside Fine Gael and the Greens, Fianna Fáil was committed to implementing the taoiseach’s Shared Island initiative.
