{"id":640476,"date":"2026-08-16T17:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T17:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/640476\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T17:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T17:38:15","slug":"micheal-martin-says-talk-of-border-poll-makes-him-go-bananas-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/640476\/","title":{"rendered":"Miche\u00e1l Martin says talk of Border poll makes him go \u2018bananas\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has told his TDs and Senators they should have the self-confidence to push back against calls for a Border poll. <\/p>\n

Martin said he \u201cgoes bananas\u201d when his own party colleagues call for a poll instead of focusing on the Shared Island initiative<\/a>, which was set up in 2020 and will commit \u20ac2 billion to cross-Border projects between now and 2035. <\/p>\n

He told a meeting in Tipperary as part his centenary tour marking 100 years of Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> that Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> had called for a Border poll after the Brexit<\/a> referendum 10 years ago, and \u201cit hasn\u2019t done them a whole lot of good electorally if you stand back from it\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd don\u2019t underestimate the vast majority of the Irish people who understand what happened for 30 years and don\u2019t want a return to it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey want a peaceful pathway to a new political construct on the island of Ireland, but it is to make sure that we bring as many people on that journey as we possibly can. It\u2019s the key agenda item for Fianna F\u00e1il.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Soundbites\u2019 on Irish unity not helpful, says Taoiseach, after recent O\u2019Callaghan commentsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said he never \u201clooked over my shoulder\u201d at Sinn F\u00e9in on the issue of a Border poll because there is a \u201cshallowness there, a superficiality; it\u2019s about the campaign, not the substance\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said: \u201cThey want to go back to rhetoric that will sound good and look good, but I don\u2019t have the heart for that. I have a heart to make a difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the party with the proven track record, and what I say to our own public representatives is that we should have far more self-confidence in ourselves. <\/p>\n

\u201cI go bananas when fellows talk to me and say, \u2018What about a Border poll?\u2019. In the name of God, we did the Good Friday Agreement<\/a>, we did the Downing Street Agreement, we are doing Shared Ireland. We are people who care about it. We are not into rhetoric.\u201d <\/p>\n

In what was billed as a \u201cfireside chat\u201d with the chairman of the party\u2019s centenary committee, Shane Moynihan, Martin recalled that in 1965 his predecessor Se\u00e1n Lemass<\/a> became the first taoiseach to meet with his Northern counterpart (Terence O\u2019Neill) in 40 years because he was \u201cbrassed off with the rhetoric, singing songs about it and nothing happened\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made it happen because we are genuine about it and we believe in it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il has come under pressure from within and outside the party in relation to a Border poll. Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>, widely seen as Martin\u2019s successor, recently told a SDLP<\/a>-organised unity conference in Belfast that the next Irish government should begin preparing for unity<\/a>, partly because the timetable for a Border poll could be set by English politicians in favour of English interests.<\/p>\n

Fine Gael<\/a> has said it will publish a blueprint for Irish unity in November ahead of its ardfheis. <\/p>\n

Martin told the Tipperary meeting in the Horse and Jockey Hotel that he wanted to take the constitutional issue out of the Shared Island initiative lest it be seen by unionists as \u201ca Trojan horse for Irish unity\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Shared Ireland programme cannot be used to push cause of Irish unity, Jack Chambers saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has worked because communities all over Northern Ireland are applying with communities in the Republic for joint programmes,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Martin said the Shared Island initiative was kept low-key for years to allow it to embed, but the upgrade to the Enterprise train between Belfast and Dublin, the Narrow Water bridge and the Ulster Canal will be physical manifestations of the benefits that the initiative will bring to Border communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has told his TDs and Senators they should have the self-confidence to push back against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[23936,6504,79,18,4771,553,19,17,26735,5765,954,124372,119739,47,39895],"class_list":["post-640476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-belfast-agreement","tag-brexit","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-fianna-fail","tag-fine-gael","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-micheal-martin","tag-northern-ireland","tag-sean-lemass","tag-shared-island","tag-sinn-fein","tag-social-democratic-and-labour-party"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117106410180080467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}