The Penny Has Dropped!

In an interview with The Times newspapeer reported by RTÉ, the leader of Irish Unionism Peter Robinson has stated that the future of NI as a part of the UK will depend on Catholic votes and that he could be the last Unionist First Minister.

Asked whether he could be Northern Ireland's last unionist first minister, Mr Robinson said: "Yes, but the assumption behind your question is that the Catholic population will not vote for unionist parties."

Of course Catholics do not generally vote for Unionist parties so Mr. Robinson would appear to be clutching at straws. Even if Protestant alienation of Catholics was to discontinue, this would be unlikely to change.

The article implies the reasoning behind Mr Robinsons comments as due to demographic change backed up by interesting statistics

"A 2001 census recorded the Northern Irish population as 53.1% Protestant and 43.8% Catholic, with the 2011 census expected to show a narrowing of the gap.



The Times cited a recent national audit showing that when asked to state their religion, 54% of boys and 55% of girls described themselves as Catholic.


Figures out last month found that 49% of Northern Irish students at the province's universities were Catholics, while 35% were Protestants".

The Unionist leader is clearly resigned to the fact that a Catholic plurality in the North is inevitable in the not too distant future and acknowledges that the very survival of the orange state will be detetermined by the very people that were to be excluded in the "Protestant state for a Protestant people".

For the Leader of Unionism to publicly asknowledge that NI is on the verge a Catholic majority is truely momentous. The penny has dropped.