Reverend Karen Sethuraman:

I am happy to go first. I am going to answer the question from Senator McGreehan. The Senator and I need to get a cup of coffee. It is a long road to Damascus. I grew up in east Belfast, with Union Jacks on the lampposts. Going to the bonfires for 12 July every year was an outing. I grew up in that community, where we had street parties as kids, championed the English football team, partook in all the things the unionist community does and I loved every bit of it. I do not know if there was a big road to Damascus moment. I probably started to see outside of my own narrative because of my pastoral experience. I started to work and get involved in peace and reconciliation work and through that I realised that there was another story apart from the one I grew up in. I realised that there were other people who were hurt and busted and who did not agree with the same outlook. I was probably sheltered from that view as a young person who grew up in the Troubles. If I am being honest, though, I am not sure that I really understood what they were fighting over. I just knew, and remember being told, to just not go to this community, that I should stay in this community and all of those things. However, that is a whole other conversation.

To be quite frank with Senator McGreehan, I fell in love with people. I lifted my eyes up a little higher to think about whether there might be something more. I ended up becoming a mum myself and that wrecked me even more because - and we still laugh at this as a family - when I was driving my kids, who were 16 and 18 years old, one day they asked me whether they were Catholic or Protestant. I thought it was wonderful to have moved so much forwards that my kids did not know that. I am not really into labels, but I would probably label myself as a "neither" in that regard and someone open to being convinced and persuaded either way. However, when I got out of the little bubble in which I grew up and went down to Donegal, I fell in love with the beaches and the people there. When I went to Dublin, I wanted the diversity of that city for Belfast. When I went down to Cork, I also fell in love. Something in me realised that I may have grown up and identified as British, but I am Irish and I am proud of that.

There is something about working, looking back and thinking that here we are one hundred years after partition. However, is it not the work of peace and reconciliation to seek to bring together what has been divided? That is probably where my answer focuses. The root of my changed perspective is that I fell in love with people. My kids have also changed me. I am not sure how we identify. I have people in my family, and I am talking about people in my close-knit family, who are unionists and that is the bottom line. I have a daughter who is Irish and she wants to live in Dublin. I have another daughter who probably identifies with the Alliance Party. Therefore, we are just this great mixed bunch and I think that is an example of many people here in Northern Ireland. There is something about hearing other people’s stories. I want to make this clear. I commend the Government, in respect of wanting to build bridges with neighbours, on acknowledging the passing of Prince Philip. Simple things like flying the flag at half-mast reach out to our unionist neighbours.

Turning to the question from Senator Blaney, we can often break ourselves wondering how we can get unionists to the table. We must shine the light on a different question, which is not whether people want a united Ireland. That question may very well come in a border poll at some stage. However, the question now is let us consider that we may be bigger than the UK, and that the other option on the table is that we may be part of an all-Ireland entity. That is the invitation to unionists. Unionists cannot be asked to be part of something they do not want. However, it is possible to ask them to build the case regarding why they are better off in the UK and what that means to them as a people. When it then comes to the time for a border poll, unlike Brexit, people will be going to that poll having been informed. Politicians will share their visions and raise the flag for what they believe is best, and that includes unionists, nationalists, the Alliance Party and all sorts of parties. The people will then decide.

A better question, however, which is the question we pitched to those children, is what do they dream of as being our future. What does such a future look like? Cases can then begin to be built for the UK and for a new island. It is also important to say that we would not expect those who are champions of the UK to be part of the Scottish conversation on independence. We would not expect representatives of the Scottish National Party, SNP, to be at conversations concerning championing the UK. We would expect a case to be built for such arguments, and that is all that this is. I see myself as extending the vision beyond Northern Ireland being part of the UK. I refer to the possibility that what may be best for us is to join up with the South. I am up for that.

I love everything about the whole island, including the freedom to be able to have those 12 July celebrations and go to bonfires. It would be great if Ireland embraced all of that as an island and recognised 12 July as an all-island celebration and as a holiday. I think there are ways in which we can work together but the starting place is how we can make our home better. I hope I have answered the question from Senator McGreehan but let us grab a coffee and I will share more about the road to Damascus.