In the event of united Ireland could DUP attract a significant vote in the Republic / 26 Counties ?

No, I just happen to think that the DUP will score votes among FG support before others.

The OP is based on them surviving a UI.

And I think their vote here will come from FG’s support base first.

Honestly I think once a UI bedded in and the DUP adjusted to the new reality the first thing we'd see is a name change to something like Heritage. Then the new generation of members who didn't have the baggage of the past would start appealing to the socially conservative Protestant voters, just as Renua appeal to socially conservative Catholic voters. Next thing you know they've joined forces as New Heritage and they're the Irish version of America's 'Christian' right.

Renua who no longer exist?

The mid 70s were a time of high tensions and Poots had family tragedies. He also was the target of an attack when an INLA gunman opened fire on him when he was driving through the nationalist Markets area of Belfast.

Quote: "His son Edwin later told this newspaper that he was so angered by the attack on his father than he seriously considered joining a paramilitary organisation, but was talked out of it by the Rev Ian Paisley. Edwin said his father told him over the years that bitterness should not be indulged in and that it wasn't Catholics who shot at him, but a terrorist."

So two sides to the story. If that is the worst sectarianism you can find in the DUP, what do you think of the sectarianism in SF, where some members at that time in the 70s were terrorists?

Stop deflecting to McCrea now. Anyway, neither McCrea or Poots were members of any terrorist organizations, never mind terrorists themselves. Contrast that to SF : how many were in the IRA? We know Gerry A. was not because he said so.

Your also conveniently forgetting in your Poots apology that he said what I quoted in 1975…..The INLA attacked him in 1976….Did he have a magical premonition in making his statement? It had such an effect on him, he'd came up with it even before the attack……

(Or you're clueless as usual)

Remember McCrea sharing a platform with LVF leader Billy Wright, when Wright was at the height of his murderous LVF days.

In a united Ireland, if the DUP still existed and still retained the kind of support in the six counties that they do today, that alone would give them enough seats to qualify them as a potential partner in a coalition goverment.

In the UK general election just gone by, the DUP got 22% of the NI vote. That would be the equivalent of 8% of an all-Ireland vote. The Greens, Labour and the PDs have all entered coalitions on the back of lower vote-shares than that.

Honestly, I don't seem them getting enough additional votes/seats in the twenty-six counties to change the big picture very much. 9% or 10% of the vote doesn't make you a more credible coalition partner than 8% does. But if they could get a material degree of votes/seats outside the six counties, that might make it a bit more politically feasible for other parties to take them on as coalition partners.

But only a tiny bit more feasible. While the numbers might add up, there'd be a huge cultural problem. The DUP's core values of aggression, obstruction, opposition to consensus, etc, would make them a deeply unsuitable smaller partner in any coalition arrangement — you'd rather coalesce with People Before Profit, to be honest. Plus, I think their attitudes and values would make the role of junior coalition partner deeply unattractive to the DUP anyway. They'd much rather remain incorruptible and pure and on the margins.

Well, before partition Dublin had a sizeable Uninoist minority and smaller minority in Cork, after partition the Unionist votes were transerfered to Fine Gael (Cumman na Gael then) so it became harder to keep track of where the voting went to after that. And when I say unionist I don't simply mean people who want Ireland to join the UK but those who want a closer relationship with Britain & to rejoin the British Commonwealth of Nations. And other than their Unionist position the DUP could strike a nerve with the Irish right, people who are pro-life, anti-Socialist, anti-LGBT rights and anti-immigration, that's basically what the DUP stand for in their internal politics, and there is certainly enough people in the 26 counties who share these views. Again I say it is unlikely but certainly not impossible. Do you believe it's impossible?

Yes, but Cusack & Myers both wrote columns for southern based newspapers. I mean, Sean MacStofain was also born in England that didn't disqualify him from becoming leader of the PIRA, I think they used the FIFA Granny rule for that one.

The problem with your analysis is that there are more people who are pro-life, anti-Socialist, anti-LGBT rights and anti-immigration who have supported Sinn Fein in the last election than who have ever supported Fine Gael.

The thing is that all of those traits are associated with uber-nationalist parties. Sinn Fein is being ripped apart by these tensions between their different leanings. Those nationalists who are pro-life, etc., are moving to independents, Aontu, and smaller parties like Independent Ireland.

None of them will ever support DUP, because even though many of those SF supporters hold similar views on those issues as the DUP, the nationalist divide keeps them apart. If you want an example of this type of situation, have a look at Belgium, where the country is divided along nationalist lines. Right-wing Flemish voters would never vote for the right-wing party from the other side.

The DUP will only ever be relevant if unionist identity stays strong in Ulster. If within a generation or two, they begin to get comfortable with an Irish identity then there will be no point in having a unionist party, and so the DUP will either have to rebrand away from its unionist roots, which means it won't be the DUP anymore, or be resigned to irrelevance.

It only operated as a united entity under British rule. Prior to the British, the island was a disorganised mess, with various people claiming dominion but no united rule.

It is also over 100 years since it was so united, not "just a few decades ago".

Important that historical facts are maintained.

The 'Ireland was never united until the British came' is a favoured taunt of belligerent Unionists, another point of commonality with those who engage in the same here if there is a UI.