In 2021, a hundred years after the creation of Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson tweeted: “Let me underline that, now & in the future, Northern Ireland’s place in the UK will be protected and strengthened.” Since the word “not” has to be inserted automatically into every positive statement Johnson makes, unionists ought to have taken this as fair warning: Year 101 of Northern Ireland’s existence would be its equivalent of George Orwell’s Room 101, where you are confronted by your own worst nightmares.
After last week’s assembly elections, the unionist nightmare takes the amiable form of Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s vice-president and now putative first minister of the Northern Ireland executive. The source of dread is not so much O’Neill herself as the historic moment she embodies: Catholic nationalism outstripping Protestant unionism. Her party is dedicated above all to ending the union. It beat Johnson’s allies in the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) in first preference votes by eight percentage points.
