NI Dec 22 Assembly Election

What a weird post. That’s not what I said. It’s just a reality of the current demographics. Over 90s represents the highest % of Protestants and lowest % of catholics. That shrinks year on year until catholics outnumber Protestants for the first time in the 35-39 age group. So it’s the different birthrate of the previous 90+ years that caused that. Condom use would have been much lower amongst catholic families for a lot of those preceding decades and poorer people usually had bigger families back in 50/60/70s etc. I doubt there’s any real difference nowadays in birthrates/family size but those from a catholic background have a larger share of the under 40 population so it’s hard to see much push back on that going forward. The unionist base shrinks year on year and will continue to do so, that was the point of my post.

Time they got on with their white papers then. It’s not as if they haven’t been threatening it for 50 years

They seem to have no intention of seeking to woo anybody but Unionists going by this Unionist. He's looking for special electoral conditions for Unionist candidates bringing back memories of gerrymandering.

Still think there are a fair number of catholics who would vote to remain within the UK if it came to the crunch .SF had a good election but I think by and large took the SDLP vote with a few exceptions .I certainly have met some Catholics up there thar are doing well but would not vote to join us .Also is most of the Alliance vote not really a Unionist vote just they are more inclusive about sharing power within the union .

Very true just I heard a bit about border polls since yesterday and I think we a long way off that being successful yet .

It's very easy to get elected. 462 of those who stood got a seat, only 345 failed. Given the untold riches available to politicians, it surprises me how few go in for it.

Hah, it's what you inferred - that demographics/ breeding more nationalists is the changing dynamic. The phrase of course originated across the water: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/close_one%27s_eyes_and_think_of_England and was particularly in use I think after WW1 and WW2 when menfolk were depleted.

I think people are getting carried away. Yes there has been a great increase in catholic percentage population. But given everything, including brexit fiasco, surely republicans are depressed.

total voting for parties supporting United ireland in 1998 = 39.5%

so where are we after all the sf surges and all the pr hype. Yes you guessed it :

total voting for parties supporting United ireland in 2023 = 39.5%

i.e. lower percentage of Catholics vote for United ireland parties today than 25 years ago.

Carlsberg comes to mind

According to the chart the Alliance vote is in decline since before 2020., Unionism since before 2016.

Not sure how long is needed to see a trend.

I'm sure once he gets a taste of the D4 lifestyle, his head will be turned from living up north where its colder, poorer and distinctly more insular. :)

In all seriousness, I think he lives near where he was born.

Plenty of us do that, even when offered the prospect of living someone ostensibly nicer.

I think there's more to it than that.

If you look at the raw vote figures, as opposed to percentages, an interesting picture emerges.

Increase in total vote compared to 2019:

Unionist parties: 5,256

Nationalist parties: 54,815

Other parties: 25,458

Independents: 5,057

No doubt if you analysed the independents you could assign their votes to the unionist/nationalist/other columns, but on the figures it's clear this isn't going to change the overall picture. The total unionist vote is static; unionist parties are just squabbling among themselves as to how to divide it. But the DUP is doing OK in that squabble; their share of the unionist first preference vote is up from 58.3% in 2019 to 60.5% today. So far as the DUP is concerned, the unionist vote is slightly less fragmented today than it was in 2019.

….

Absolutely. It’s exactly the point I was making . Excellent PR. The bubble will burst if they get into power in roi as the PR mask will slip

Actually Dublin is much closer to where he was brought up than where he is currently living. Paddy as a young person was a very strong republican (and I am not suggesting he was in any way supportive of the violence of the Ira). He was steeped in the local GAA and actually local unionists found his political approach quite divisive. A number of years living away from this island has opened his eyes and he has endeared himself to unionism on his return. He done a podcast I think called ‘postcard from the other side’ which was excellent and of course he openly challenged, on prime roi tv, the ‘up the ra’ chanting by the roi football team. That was courageous and spot on. I wish him well and might even tune in occasionally

My goodness. Someone accusing me of having a weird view of roi (with a load of mad up nonsense about me) then sets about presenting a 10x more weird view of OWC and unionism. Mmmmm!