Despite all the talk, a united Ireland remains an idyllic concept which is largely territorial in intent, rather than centred on uniting people.
The exception has been the Dublin government’s Shared Island Initiative, which has so far pledged about £210 million for various projects, to “enhance cooperation, connection and mutual understanding”.
However, even that initiative can fall into the trap of financially extravagant romanticism. The misconception of what a united Ireland means can cause the diversion of public funds away from the needy and towards the unnecessary.
Welcome to the story of the Narrow Water Bridge.
Actually, it is a story of two bridges. While the Dublin government is building the £50 million Narrow Water Bridge (due to start next week), Stormont is planning another bridge just four miles away as part of a new road scheme. Known as the Southern Relief Road, it will cost an estimated £130 million.
The Narrow Water Bridge will span a tidal inlet between Down and Louth, where the Newry River meets the sea. Although it is alongside Warrenpoint port, it will only be strong enough to take cars, but not lorries or buses.
Meanwhile, conscious of the growing lorry traffic from Warrenpoint port, Stormont’s planned road will link the Warrenpoint-Newry dual carriageway to the main Belfast-Dublin road, avoiding a congested Newry. It too will cross the Newry River, just inland from where it meets the sea.
This bridge will do much more for cross-border trade but, because it will be placed solely in the north, it does not have the symbolism of a cross-border connection. In the Shared Island Initiative, it’s not the bridge that’s important, it’s what it symbolises.
Real progress towards uniting the Irish people would be better understood by staging Sam Thompson’s 1960 play Over the Bridge. It highlights the sectarianism which created and maintains partition. Thompson’s bridge rather than Dublin’s bridge is more relevant to political progress in the north.
The Narrow Water Bridge is the result of several years of campaigning by genuine and well-meaning local people who believe that it will enhance the economic development of the Carlingford Lough area.
Although their campaign has not politically advocated a united Ireland, Sinn Féin and the SDLP have rallied in its cause. There has not been the same level of nationalist support for Stormont’s bridge, even though its construction will be overseen by a Sinn Féin minister. Indeed it has been opposed by local landowners and those who say that it will be too low to allow sailing ships up the Newry canal, which adjoins the river.
The handful of motorists wishing to travel between Warrenpoint and Omeath will be able to take a five-minute drive up the road from Narrow Water to access Stormont’s bridge. That’s £50 million to avoid a 10-minute round trip, reflecting a preoccupation with all-Ireland symbolism, rather than focussing on a practical unity of people.
Motorists travelling from south Down to Dublin, for example, will definitely use Stormont’s bridge. Crossing at Narrow Water and driving through Cooley would add at least half an hour to their journey. For those who specifically wish to visit Cooley, there is a perfectly good ferry from Greencastle, Co Down, to Greenore in Louth.
Meanwhile, the A2 from Newry to Kilkeel remains reduced to a single carriageway, about four miles from Narrow Water. It is controlled by traffic lights near Rostrevor where, in an autumn landslide, part of the Mountains of Mourne literally swept down to the sea. There appear to be no plans to fully re-open the road. £50 million would go a long way to resolving that problem.
Alternatively that money could upgrade other roads in the area. With the run down of Daisy Hill Hospital, ambulances from South Down face a tortuous, two-hour journey to Craigavon along bad roads (including the one still half-blocked).
The Narrow Water Bridge, which is intended to symbolise Irish unity, is in effect symbolising two separate systems of uncoordinated decision-making
Meanwhile, one in five children in the south live in families who cannot afford to buy them new shoes. Never mind the shoes, you say, the bridge shows Dublin’s commitment to a united Ireland. No, it doesn’t. If it were committed to a united Ireland, it would have liaised with Stormont to realise that the Newy River does not need two bridges four miles apart. The £50 million could have been better spent elsewhere.
Thus, the Narrow Water Bridge, which is intended to symbolise Irish unity, is in effect symbolising two separate systems of uncoordinated decision-making.
All of which suggests that for the Dublin government’s northern policy, Narrow Water is just a bridge too far.