The destructiveness of constructive unionism

At first glance, to describe Irish unionism as constructive appears almost to be a contradiction in terms. More of a dinner party than a political movement, constructive unionists lack the unionist pedigree that, for instance, is instantly recognisable in Carson’s Ulster revolt of 1912, or in the ‘Ulster says No’ banners that sprang up in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. Indeed, to their many critics, theirs was the creed of a redundant elite who, condescendingly claiming to have discerned the inevitable drift of Irish history, had decided to cut their losses. ¹ Instead, constructive unionism has come to be seen as essentially a late nineteenth-century phenomenon which, however much it appealed to the imagination of an unrepresentative few among Irish unionists, was primarily an English Tory device designed by Arthur and Gerald Balfour to divide nationalism and rule Ireland. ²