‘History is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake.’
Whilst a somewhat tired Joycean quote, the sentiment surely still resonates with many young people in the North.
Whilst most millennials, Gen Z, and now generation Alpha, have been fortunate to inhabit a time of peace, there remains an inescapable and lingering sectarian divide, as everything from flags to the language to which we refer to this place, continues to rile political debate.
Of course, this is not news, but how we address these issues in future will be. And ultimately, the future belongs to the youth of today.
Some within our political class tell us that these are petty, tribal, and backward concerns and stand a barrier to the kind of political action that we need to take.
And for many young people, this too resonates. However, this analysis alone is shallow, glib, and detached from the reality that identity is nontrivial and fundamental to society.
How our language, our institutions, and public spaces reflect our identity and values is important and worthy of our close attention.
Yet, in 2024 our young people see themselves as something far bigger than the parochial cloaks of identity that history has dealt them.
For many, regardless of religious background, they are as likely to think of themselves firstly as gamers, environmentalists, or Swfities, as they are nationalist or unionist.
Overlapping interests and pluralistic identities have of course always existed, but in our globalised world, these prisms of personal expression and affinity occupy greater significance.
As the wounds of the past heal and sensitivity to historical concerns fades, the youth of this island have an opportunity to consider our future in less restrictive and more imaginative ways.
Today, witnessing shows like Derry Girls enjoying international success, or Kneecap receiving adulation from Sundance to Glastonbury, Irishness as understood in the northern context, reveals its cultural and artistic capital.
Both success stories demonstrate confidence and assuredness in their Irishness. Whether coming from within the territorial confines on the UK or not, for young northern nationalists, their Irish identity is worn confidently.
By contrast, the scenes of a PSNI squad car flying Armagh flags and rejoicing in the All-Ireland success, has unnerved some within the unionist community.
Carl Jung wrote that humans could sense the future, and across the north there is a growing sense that seismic constitutional change is on the horizon.
What a new and reunified Ireland will look like is as yet very much undetermined. But it is precisely that it is unwritten which makes the nationalist proposition so exciting.
Through the SDLP’s New Ireland Commission, the groundwork is being done to reimagine a unified state, engaging with all communities across the island, and reaching out to Unionists in hope to codesign a truly shared future.
The opportunity for people across our island to be involved in a discussion about our future, about a new constitution, and a new set of political arrangements by which to govern ourselves, presents a rare moment for a population to determine their future in a world where uncertainty and despair surrounds them.
By contrast, the future of the union appears markedly set. With so many of our young living in Britain, many will be familiar with its failings, for others, the decline can be experienced vicariously on popular YouTube channels like Bald and Bankrupt and the Wandering Turnip.
For the unfamiliar, the vloggers take the global public on warts ‘n all tours of modern-day Britain, as they document the collapse of English towns and cities in real time.
Viewers are served scenes of ghostly streets, delipidated buildings, and once splendid town squares in rapid decay. As the gonzo journalists interview the locals, the poverty and hopelessness in stark.
Now, having arrived in Downing Street with fewer votes than either one of the Corbyn led campaigns, the Labour party in Britain appear set to continue with the Tory programme of austerity, maintaining the abhorrent two child benefit cap, and making few promises of economic rejuvenation anytime soon. Time will tell.
A united Ireland, or a new Ireland, by contrast to Brexit Britain, offers a shared future with a state that already enjoys a higher life expectancy, higher salaries, and a future within the EU which excels in homing complex and differing identities.
The Shared Island Unit has demonstrated the importance of investment to build for a shared future, and I am hopeful that Leo Varadkar’s recent suggestion to establish a sovereign wealth fund for unity, indicates that building a New Ireland will be a priority for future Dublin governments.
Nationalism isn’t a stale historical idea, it is a living movement, and the one best positioned to secure reconciliation, economic justice, and a thriving, inclusive society.
The mission isn’t just building a New Ireland for our children, the mission is having them at the heart of building it.