Brexit or no Brexit, all we hear about is a united Ireland

With Brexit, all we hear is, we need a united Ireland.

Brexit or no Brexit, civil rights or no civil rights, NHS or no NHS, labour or conservative, dystopia or utopia — we need a united Ireland.

I did my 11 plus exam the year that the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and as such, I’ve always been instructed to see the agreement in a good light.

Pollen of peace and all day that.

Yet, with a little deeper reading, all I see is squabble and delay and shut-down and absence of government.

I’ve done my best to break beyond the traditional mould we’re born in to, but all I see is the continuation of the poisonous ancient animosities.

You stole our land. It’s all Britain’s fault for partition. Brits out. The plantation.

Protestant state for a Protestant people. Gerrymandering. Parrot.

Where is the actual coming together and building something new?

I went to an event one night chaired by Declan Kearney encouraging dialogue and sympathetic listening, then the next day I see headlines from Declan Kearney that bellowed cheap populism saying that Irish people in Northern Ireland are second class citizens.

I’m an Irishman and I’m not sure what he’s taking about. As a parent I’m absolutely sure that integrated education and shared culture is more pressing than any language act.

I remember Martin McGuinness pleading with 10 Downing Street that the peace process was precariously fragile, then that night a motion was made by Sinn Fein to remove the prefix London from Londonderry.

I remember Pearse Doherty parroting the lines of respect and equality, then a short time later he made headlines saying that the Irishmen who fought in World War I were fighting for a foreign power.

What happened to reconciling the people and leaving the past behind?

Last week in Soloheadbeg Mary Lou McDonald paid tribute to Dan Breen and spoke of the need to honour “our Fenian dead” and to “finish the journey, where Tipperary leads Ireland will follow. Tiocháidh ár lá.”

With that I must say, those pleasantries of goodwill and reconciliation I learnt in school fall a little short of the fighting talk uttered by Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald.

Or, since I was born into a unionist family, should I honour my unionist dead and finish the journey, No surrender? Respect.

Brian John Spencer, Belfast