The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

the Ulster Unionist Party: Union with Great Britain is a union in the hearts and minds of the Unionist People and something which we cannot change even if we wanted to. This feeling of Britishness is so deeply engrained as to be almost genetically encoded… for Unionists their basic political heritage is their Britishness. Failure to recognise this is a fundamental and enduring mistake of Irish nationalism… While the rest of the Irish people choose a Gaelic, nationalist and independent Ireland, Unionists show a clear preference for continued membership of a modern, pluralist and liberal democracy… Britishness in its best form seeks to manifest a tolerance and respect for different cultures: pluralistic and exhibiting a common decency, it does not seek to interfere with the faith, creed or aspiration of any group… Unionists have the right to say yes to a 32-county state but they also have the right to say no. The so-called guarantee to Unionists by Westminster is simply an acceptance of reality… to countenance an independent 32-county Irish Republic is for Unionists, by definition, impossible.