{"id":5660,"date":"2022-04-25T13:28:47","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T12:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/?p=5660"},"modified":"2022-04-25T13:34:46","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T12:34:46","slug":"scotland-ireland-compare-contrast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/?p=5660","title":{"rendered":"Scotland &#038; Ireland: Compare &#038; Contrast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In July 2020, <a href=\"https:\/\/grassrootsoban.scot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Grassroots Oban<\/a> organised a meeting with Dr Paul Gillespie of University College Dublin. He is a former foreign affairs editor at the Irish Times. At University College Dublin he focusses on research looking at the changing face of Irish \/ UK relations, especially post-Brexit, the effect of Brexit in Northern Ireland, and the shape of a future Irish Reunification referendum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-1022x1024.png\" alt=\"Scotland &amp; Ireland: Compare &amp; Contrast\" class=\"wp-image-5663\" width=\"326\" height=\"327\" srcset=\"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-1022x1024.png 1022w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-768x769.png 768w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-370x371.png 370w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-270x270.png 270w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-570x571.png 570w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21-740x741.png 740w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Screenshot-2022-04-25-at-13.19.21.png 1190w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 326px) 100vw, 326px\" \/><figcaption>Political analyst at University College Dublin. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"> You can listen to Paul here:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Changing Minds :  Scotland and Ireland - compare and contrast\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?from=embed&amp;i=nwnja-109ed53-pb&amp;share=1&amp;download=1&amp;fonts=Arial&amp;skin=8bbb4e&amp;font-color=&amp;rtl=0&amp;logo_link=&amp;btn-skin=ff6d00&amp;size=150\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"> To give you an idea of what he covered:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Scotland and Ireland Now<\/strong> and the Drivers of Constitutional Change?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>dual sovereignty crisis external with EU, driven internally by elements of UK and now coming to ahead stoked by Brexit<\/li><li>the drivers of change in context Brexit<\/li><li>possible scenarios for constitutional change in Uk<\/li><li>what\u2019s going on in Unionism and Unionists throughout UK but particularly in NI; the need in Ireland to understand this more clearly&nbsp;<\/li><li>asymmetry of power between EU and UK was clear in NI negotiations about the border. UK is now engaging in disruptive activity about that now.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Where UK \/ Ireland futures intersect<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>bringing NI out of EU opens up debate on unification of ireland<\/li><li>if devolution becomes dysfunctional and&nbsp; also given leaving EU then unification becomes a preferred option over devolved power.<\/li><li>small citizens assembly were in in 2015 in NI asking for constitutional views, including alternate shaped for a unified Ireland. That is being replicated in Dublin shortly.<\/li><li>Borders politics in Ireland is going to impact hugely on Scotland&nbsp;in any independence negotiations<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Potential unification from Eire\u2019s point of view<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>its been rather abstract, tokenism historically<\/li><li>now made concrete post Brexit<\/li><li>pace of events may be quite rapid now. Sein Fhein drive that agenda in Eire and they want a Unification preparatory approach made for that with citizens assemblies, even a ministry\u00a0for unification. Other parties have adopted a more gradualist shared Ireland approach, repairing Good Friday Agreement institutions, prior to any discussion about unity.\u00a0<\/li><li>there is an awareness in Ireland that the Irish situation may be affected by dynamics and events in Scotland.<\/li><li>interim report from UCL available on their website<\/li><li>referendums, borders and EU membership are increasingly mutual concerns for Scotland, NI and Eire.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Since Dr Gillespie&#8217;s talk to Grassroots Oban, he has been a guest with Glasgow Pensioners for Independence. My favourite question to him was <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Can you give us any tips on how to deal with Perfidious Albion? you\u2019ve plenty of experience with them after all. <\/p><cite>Question to Paul Gillespie from Glasgow Pensioners for Independence<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>You can listen to that discussion here: <a href=\"https:\/\/pensionersforindependence.scot\/2021\/07\/04\/scotland-ireland-a-constitutional-moment-for-change\/\">A Constitutional Moment for Change?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note: <em>These are the kind of programmes that I used to make for IndyLive Radio. And originally this was a blog post I wrote to promote the Oban meeting. I&#8217;ve since left the radio, and have now set up and am part of IndyLive Podcasters. We make the same type of content but using video and podcasts and we&#8217;re reaching many times more people than we did at IndyLive Radio. You can read more about IndyLive Podcasters here <\/em>: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.independencelive.net\/blogpost\/podcasters-r-us\/\">Podcasters R Us<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In July 2020, Grassroots Oban organised a meeting with Dr Paul Gillespie of University College Dublin. He is a former foreign affairs editor at the Irish Times. At University College Dublin he focusses on research looking at the changing face of Irish \/ UK relations, especially post-Brexit, the effect of Brexit in Northern Ireland, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,162,320,296],"tags":[115,328,329,327,30],"class_list":["post-5660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brexit","category-scottish-independence","category-indy-podcasters","category-to-my-unionist-friends","tag-brexit","tag-grassroots-oban","tag-irish-reunification","tag-paul-gillespie","tag-scottish-independence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5660"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5670,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions\/5670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}