WI Catholic voting majority at time of Celtic tiger

Suppose Northern Ireland had reached the point of having a Catholic majority at he time when the REpubllic seemed to be booming.

Could Northern Ireland have voted to join the Republic.

If so would Protestatns, resist, accept or leave?
 
Well, assuming you mean a Nationalist majority (as currently the Catholic community is pretty evenly split between Nationalists and Unionists, with either side having the majority depending on what poll you look at).

Honestly, the Republic and Westminster work out some way to molify them without the province actually joining the Republic, perhaps through some new ministerial post. The Peace process is delicate enough as it is in the mid 2000s (remember it's barely 15 years since Good Friday today, and the Assembly was prorogued for a bit in 2002). The Republic, even at the height of the economic boom, just dosen't have the finances, resources or political inclinations to take over the job of providing security services in the north, and deal with the much larger (percentage wise) civil service, and that's without a more militant unionist presence.
 
If the Catholics had a majority or likely to have one in the generation then it's unlikely that the GFA as we know it would exist as both sides would have significantly different negotiating positions. (interesting side note the recent NI census might have some information about the population shift there, the majority of recent emigrants are Catholic which might explain the increasing numbers but wouldn't affect a referendum situation).

In terms of the effects, the Republic would most likely be able to handle the economic issues if the subvention funding NI gets is between 3-6 billion, it would just mean the erosion of the Tax base and increase in social payments that went on wouldn't have happened. Though the massive changes in Public service issues would be epic (NI has the same number of Public service for 1.8 million that the Republic has for 4.5 million), over all NI would be a huge drag on the Republics economy, just look at the figures today shows the vast difference in GNP/GDP between the ROI and NI

The Security aspect on the other hand would cripple the Republic as the Gardaí wouldn't be trained for such situations and the Army would never have the numbers to sustain an NI operation.

As to the Protestants I imagine they would split into the different camps depending on their views but it would most likely be an extremely unstable situation.
 
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