Dr. Claire Mitchell:

Míle buíochas. I love the question about newcomers and new nationals to the island because in 1798, my people were the newcomers. They were not invested in a certain type of Irish state. They were here and they wanted to do their business and have a good life for their families. They were quite unshackled and free in their envisaging of how a new Ireland, or whatever it would be called at this time, would look like and that is very exciting. Thinking about nation-building in that inclusive way is going to be crucial to this reunification project because it is not just about including Protestants, but everybody. That will settle a lot of nerves.

The rise of a kind of more far-right politics on the island is quite unsettling actually from a Northern Protestant republican point of view because from a point in time when I was taking pelters from my own community, I have now started to get them from a kind of true-Gael perspective. It is important for the Oireachtas and whoever else is working on this, therefore, to look at this issue and to make sure that Protestants do not become a whipping boy in that wider context. We do not want anybody to be excluded. Working on telling the stories of who we want to be as Ireland that are inclusive is a really necessary job of work.

What is the most difficult part of unshackling? First, I do not think that most unionists or loyalists feel it as a shackle but Mr. Hazzard is right to identify the dissonance with belonging to the UK at the moment. We have a lot of good, loyalist friends and they do not trust Westminster as far as they could throw it. They feel excluded, abandoned and that their sense of loyalty is to their own community. There is some interesting learning for Irish nationalists and republicans there, not in changing those people's loyalty to the idea of the union, but with the queen dying, the decline of the welfare state, the rise of English nationalism and the crumbling of our state in the North, there is a loosening of a lot of the bonds. There is an area there where conversations might be possible.

I am sorry to say there is also a distrust of political parties, that is, all political parties. Even many unionists and loyalists distrust their own political parties that are designed to represent them. That is why this process around constitutional dialogue needs to be people-led. While political parties absolutely have a role to play in getting the structures in place to give people like me the offer, the pitch and the things that are going to viably change their lives, if the process is solely party-led, it will end up in more disillusionment. The good part is that a lot of us are standing here willing, ready and eager to step in to the fray. We will not just persuade for any old Ireland; that is not in our DNA. I refer to a good unity and wider than that and, as I said, declare a North that is psychologically safe, where people, even if they did not want unity, can feel relaxed and valued and that prevents violence. This is just the problem of our times, that is, an alienated and disenfranchised feeling, which is behind the rise of the far-right, North, South, and across the water. People will need to feel like citizens again and feel they can voice their concerns at some level and that they will actually be listened to. That would be a game-changer.