United Ireland without Protestant support at the end

“If we don’t have the Ulster Presbyterians on our side in a new Ireland, we are definitely lost.”

Former Sinn Féin Executive Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir believes there will be a border poll and that constitutional change is imminent in Ireland.

However, he says that union involvement is important.

“What do unionists want to talk about every time I meet them? They want to talk about a united Ireland,” he said. BBC News NI’s red lines Podcasts.

“Either they are afraid of it or they are not afraid of it.”

The former mayor of Belfast, who retired from top politics in 2019, added: “Or what will it mean for their business, or what will it mean for their culture or their sport?

“So the reality is that the Unionists are grappling with the issue.”

On the details of whether or not there will be a constitutional change, he could not have been clearer: “There will be a vote on the border.”

“And by the way, I’m not in a hurry, because this only goes in one direction and we want to take as many people with us as possible.

“I don’t even know if I’ll live to see it. My father was 74 – I’m 64. But there will be a united Ireland.”

However, this was a warning shot across the bow of his nationalist and republican comrades.

They would have a responsibility to ensure that everyone was comfortable with the new constitutional order, he warned. That meant respecting the British identity of the Unionists, being prepared to discuss what the future Irish flag and anthem might look like, and even being prepared to accept some kind of continued devolved role for Stormont in a new 32-county state.

“Everything must be on the table,” he said. “Respect, social justice, reconciliation.”

During the podcast interview, Mr Ó Muilleoir recalled a trip to Cork with his “good friend” Maurice Kincaid, founder of the East Belfast Partnership, which got him thinking.

“We were sitting at the end of the evening after our visit to the theatre – we wanted to bring a play to Belfast – and drinking a glass of wine.

“And he said, ‘You know, maybe 30 years of that would have been more productive for your cause than 30 years of bombs!’ And he wasn’t entirely serious.

“But there is some truth in that. We have lived through a nightmare. Maybe. I have a long way to go if I have to continue to engage with the Unionists and tell them: everything will get better.”

The former politician and former finance minister now focuses on his business interests in Ireland and the USA.

He also told Red Lines about the impact of the early years of the Northern Ireland conflict on him as a teenager growing up in west Belfast, his many years as a Belfast City Councillor and the freedom of choice his party gave him as a minister on the Stormont Executive Committee.

You can listen to Mark’s interview with Máirtín Ó Muilleoir in full here this week’s edition of Red Lines.