BREXIT accelerated campaigning for Irish unity, with growths in support and demand for a border poll in 2030.

Yet five years ago that trajectory became relatively motionless, and two elections showed the pro-unity numbers were no closer to the conditions for a poll than they were in 1998.

It is probably also the case that the Catholic population will never hit 51% due to the recent decline in birth rates.

If the ‘demography is destiny’ argument was ever correct, it concerned the growth of those of no faith who are generally in favour of remaining within the UK.

David McCann: Unity alone won’t solve unionism’s electoral problems

Denis Bradley: After Micheál Martin’s u-turn on Irish unity, it’s been a bad few weeks for the ‘reconcilers’

No one within the pro-unity camp publicly considered why their project had run into the sands.

The reality was clear support had peaked in the north and was declining in the south.

As unity campaigners pushed their claims, the microscope of fact-checking began. Much was found wanting.

The south as utopia was undone, with more realising that the 26 counties’ GDP figures are dubious, higher rents and mortgages drive homelessness, the numbers lying on trolleys in overcrowded hospitals grows, and the south’s young........

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