Writing about the census conducted in the Occupied Territories in 2021 presents the familiar problem of distinguishing between a religious label as it refers to religious practice, compared to its use as a stand-in for ethnic identity. The census collected two slightly different sets of figures, asking questions about religion, and about religion of upbringing; it is the second of these that might best be regarded as the ethnic label, since there must be many who—like Macdara himself—can readily admit to being a Catholic by upbringing, but who could not possibly use that word of themselves now, and similarly for Protestants. 

In the figures that follow, your correspondent uses firstly the upbringing figures, giving the religious practice figures in parentheses for comparison. Those raised Catholic now form a plurality within the Occupied Territories, at 45.7% (42.3%); calling oneself a Catholic in the colonial context correlates extremely strongly with support for decolonisation. Furthermore those who do not profess a religious identity make up 9.3% of the population (19%), many of whom also support decolonisation, as do a small number of the 43.5% of the population who are of Protestant background (37.4%). There are also the 1.3% who have a non-Christian religion (1.5%), some of whom would also support Unification. A disinterested observer might therefore assume that the end of the tedious game of Northern Ireland is upon us, particularly when looking at the trends in these figures, which favour the anticolonialists.

Attention amongst Partitionists has in fact focused on the finding that 29.1% of those in the north-east identify as Irish only: Partionists who would loudly assert that one can be Nigerian and Irish, Polish and Irish, et cetera, pretend to think that only those who identify as Irish only would vote for Unification, as if Partitionists have not noticed that the identity of Northern Irish has the word Irish within it (or do they perhaps imagine that the these Northern Irish themselves have not noticed this fact?); as if, moreover, identity is not so complicated that one could not find someone who identifies primarily, at the moment they give their response to the pollster, as British, but who also supports—or might support, say when they are presented with a choice during an actual referendum—the decolonisation of Ireland.

Those who responded Northern Irish only come to 19.8%, those who say they are British only come to 31.9%, a plurality, though not much above the Irish only figure. Looking at figures for composite identities gives a bit more colour: 42.8% of the population identify as British on its own or in combination with one of the types of Irishness; 33.3% identify as Irish on its own or in combination; 31.5% as Northern Irish on its own or in combination; 7.5% have some other national identity (6% Polish, Lithuanian et cetera; 1.5% English, Scottish or Welsh). Note that these numbers add up to more than 100%, as respondents could of course choose more than option. It is worth labouring the point that the text of the question did not include the word ‘only’; what is described as Irish only refers to those who only ticked Irish in answer to the question about national identity, and the advice to tick all that apply.

In any case, it is clear that there is, as one would expect, some complexity to the colonial situation, with some clarity that neither Unification nor Unionism commands a clear majority. For Partionists, only the first part of this matters, although the exact same argument can and should easily be applied to the second part. 

Let us keep in mind that the ballot will not offer an option of neither or either/or: while Partitionists boast that the growing middle ground means that Unification is receding, they have not encouraged any examination of what it means to be in-between—for example, what an in-between person might do when presented with a binary choice in a Border Poll—nor the implications of the strong middle-ground showing for the settler side. There is a remarkably low level of support for the colonial state, and this in the absence of any attempt by the government of the Republic to outline ideas about the new Republic that might help to assuage concerns or give rise to active enthusiasm for it, not to mention the absence of a sense that the Partionist elites might actually welcome Irish people in the north-east of the country back into the State proper. To elaborate on this last point: there is a sort of pragmatic argument that someone whose family has been in the colonial state for one hundred years, and who is aware of how little the authorities of the existing Irish state care about them, might want to keep that Northern in front of Irish as a means, ironically, of separating themselves from Partionists. In this sense the apparently positive statement of Northern Irishness is a sort of negative Identity: a means for those from native and settler communities to articulate something outside of the old binary, a subtraction from History. But no one, not even these people, is looking for an independent Northern Ireland: they will be counted in one of the two camps come a Border Poll, and one side will have a majority. A moment of simplicity before everyone returns to their complicated lives, the Occupation—Macdara is sure—collapsing around them.