WE know now there’s going to be a border poll. Everyone knows, even those Unionists who maintain a public posture of denial.

Irish unity has become the major political talking point after Brexit. It’s no coincidence because the two are inextricably linked.

As a result of the looming catastrophe of Brexit for the island of Ireland, and The North in particular, it’s no longer a matter of whether there’ll be a poll but when.

As negotiations between the UK and the EU began to get serious in the run up to the Joint Report last December the dire consequences began to dawn on people here.

The DUP, misrepresenting the majority of people here, had been talking in 2017 about the ‘opportunities’ Brexit offered. They stopped when they couldn’t name one.

It’s now apparent even to the eccentric Jacob Rees-Mogg there are none. Mogg thinks benefits might appear in 50 years. What a twit. And it’s wing- nuts like him the DUP have bolted themselves onto.

The DUP’s self-appointed ‘expert’ on border controls, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, stopped talking about electronic tracking of lorries when real experts pointed out it didn’t exist anywhere in the world, not because you couldn’t track lorries but because you couldn’t tell what or who or how much was in them.

A Border poll began to assume urgency in direct proportion to the volume of gaseous emissions emanating from the ranting right of the Conservative party driving Britain out of the Customs Union and the Single Market.

It wasn’t the attraction of Irish unity which made a poll a certainty. It is the fact that a Border poll in favour of Irish unity is a parachute which enables people in The North to float gently but securely back into the EU. The EU had agreed that provision in Enda Kenny’s time shortly after the 2016 vote.

The wonderful attraction of a successful unity referendum is its ability to undo Brexit at a stroke.

All problems about a backstop, tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers, EHIC cards, working in EU countries, farm subsidies, and so on and so on, vanish.

To continue the direct correlation between Brexit and a border Poll, the fact is the worse and more chaotic Britain’s Brexit becomes, the more likely an early Border poll.

A no deal Brexit is a guarantee of an early poll. The most delicious irony of all is that the DUP’s stupidity in blindly supporting a British government policy  which is a direct danger to their own voters’ welfare has become a direct danger to the DUP’s raison d’être, defense of the union.

Truly, as Hamlet said, they are hoist with their own petard.

It’s not only the attraction for The North of keeping the island in the EU. Most people don’t realize that the Good Friday Agreement requires concurrent referendums North and South, so a border poll can’t happen without the Irish government’s participation.

Dublin is distinctly unwilling to muddy the waters of Brexit negotiations by introducing another contentious matter into the mix.

They say ‘the time is not right’. True, but that’s because they don’t know yet how bad Brexit will be.

Once again, the worse it is,  the more likely the Irish government will see a Border poll as a sure fire way to mitigate the impact on its Border regions and cross border trade, like the 390,000 lambs from The North sent to the south annually. The worse the impact on The South, the quicker there’ll be a Border poll.

Last year Gerry Adams and Michelle O’Neill campaigned in the British general election for a Border poll ‘within five years’.

Now Sinn Féin says if there’s a no deal Brexit or Britain ‘crashes out’ of the EU – a 60 per cent chance according to one of the more bewildered Cabinet ministers – then there should be a Border poll as soon as possible.

You notice again the crucial connection between Brexit and referendums on Irish unity. The timing of the poll depends on how bad Brexit is.

Republicans never thought they would see the day when they would owe so much to the bunch of ageing backwoodsmen Peter Robinson sidelined to retirement polishing Westminster backbenches.

He thought they were out of harm’s way. Hah.

IN the years following partition Catholics in Northern Ireland suffered widespread discrimination, particularly in the areas of jobs and housing.

Decades of intermittent IRA violence and republican rhetoric from nationalist politicians in The South at election times strengthened the siege mentality of unionism confirming their position of “what we have, we hold”.

Meantime, the ruling Unionist government at Stormont presented all claims of discrimination as mere Republican propaganda. The British government turned a blind eye. Nationalists felt trapped.

Into this hopeless situation stepped two people with a social conscience, a burning desire to see justice done and a deep and extraordinary commitment to that goal.

It was the heartbreaking experiences of young homeless families revealed to [Doctor] Conn McCLUSKEY in his daily surgery and on his rounds, that brought Conn and his wife Patricia to the conclusion that something had to be done. Out of this, the Homeless Citizens League was formed, led by Angela McCrystal and Patricia McCluskey.

The very first-—if rarely acknowledged-—protest march of the civil rights movement, organized by the Homeless Citizens League, took place in Dungannon in June 1963.

Yet the [Dungannon] Council refused to budge. It was put about that the protesters were a bunch of rabble-rousers. A group of homeless young women pushing prams and led by the smartly dressed wife of the local doctor – an unlikely group of rabble-rousers!

Two months later, a squat by 17 families in an estate of prefabs due for demolition by the council led to the arrival of Press and TV cameras, forcing the hand of the Housing Minister and resulted in the agreement to complete a new housing estate for the squatters.

What a dramatic demonstration of the power of dignified peaceful protest! A small group of local women in Dungannon, dogged and determined, had taken on the Unionist controlled Council and won.

Yes, change was possible after all.

All this was happening at a time when the Unionist party, backed up by a partisan police force and the B Specials, was in full control in Stormont while the British Government continued to shirk its sovereign responsibility for the situation in Northern Ireland.

Despite the ‘David and Goliath’ challenge ahead of them, the McCluskeys realized that more had to be done. They set up the Campaign for Social Justice.

In the words of the late journalist, Patsy McCooey, this development was “the single most important one in the genesis of the Civil Rights Movement.”

The press release at their first press conference in the Wellington Park Hotel in January 1964 stated:

“The Government of Northern Ireland’s policies of apartheid and discrimination have continued to be implemented at all levels with such zeal that we have banded ourselves together to oppose them…Our first objective will be to collect comprehensive and accurate data on all injustices done against all creeds and political opinions, including details of discrimination in jobs and houses and to bring them to the attention of as many socially minded people as possible.”

And so began the hard, grinding work of the Campaign. The world of Conn and Patricia McCluskey was turned upside down. They were threatened and slandered, even cajoled by surrogates of Unionist politicians.

They supported Fr Denis Faul in exposing the biased nature of the courts; the unavailability of legal aid to those seeking to expose discrimination was highlighted in a leaflet outlining their own experience with British Prime Ministers.

They never wavered. Their home in Dungannon became the headquarters of the Campaign. All of this while Conn ran a busy practice and on many occasions had reason to fear for his life as he travelled the country roads at night responding to emergency calls.

The facts of discrimination along with outrageous statements by unionist politicians were meticulously collated and dispatched in the first and second editions of “The Plain Truth” and in newsletters distributed nationally and internationally from Washington to London and further afield where influence could be brought to bear,  and, indeed,  shame reflected on the British Government and Unionists.

For the first time there was incontrovertible and incontestable evidence of blatant discrimination against the Nationalist community.

Their motivation was summed up by Patricia speaking to a rally in Manchester organized by the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster in November 1966. “There are thousands of fine Protestants whose emotions have been so worked upon that they are a frightened people. We want to change all that. We want to live with our Protestant neighbours as equals, as fellow Christians and as fellow Irishmen and women,” she said.

It is appropriate that on this, the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement, we should applaud and acknowledge the courage, the commitment and the foresight of two extraordinary people.

Many of the younger generation may not realize that in some measure they owe the status of equality that they now take for granted to the sacrifices of a general practitioner in Dungannon and his wife. For,  in the hopeless and dark world of second-class citizenship inhabited by their grandparents, Conn and Patricia McCluskey lit a candle, which grew into a mighty flame.

The original Committee of the Campaign for Social Justice was as follows:
Peter Gormley, ear, nose and throat surgeon and Conor Gilligan, general surgeon, both in the Mater Hospital; Maurice Byrne, dentist in Dungannon; Hugh Mc Conville, teacher, Lurgan; J.J. Donnelly, Councillor, Enniskillen; Tom McLaughlin, wealthy businessman from Armagh; Leo Sullivan, science professor, Omagh; Olive Scott; Maura Mullally and Patricia McCluskey ( Chairperson)