ABSTRACT
Alternating periods of peace and terrorist hostility since 1994 have been the backdrop against which the latest efforts to resolve the Northern Ireland question by constitutional means have taken place. The Irish constitutional text can be viewed as an evolving narrative that is transformed in tandem with shifts in the construction of Irish identity. Thus, it is constitutive of a shared history but also purports to constitute this history. The original idea of the nation reflected in the Irish Constitution of 1937 is very much that of its framer Eamon de Valera. Notwithstanding constitutional interpretation of Articles 2 and 3, it would seem that the irredentist ethos of the Constitution of 1937 does not fit comfortably the current model of Irish society, which has begun to confront the sacred cows of nationalism and Catholicism. Thus, in asking whether the Irish nation is still irredentist, it is necessary to examine recent shifts in the Irish societal paradigm.
