Unionists have argued that presidential candidate Heather Humphreys was targeted and abused because of her Protestant background. Photograph: PA
Even before Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys had been defeated in the presidential election, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, Gavin Robinson, said she had been “treated with contempt” because of the links made between her and the Orange Order.
Equally, the leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party, Jim Allister, said Humphreys had been “targeted and abused because of her Protestant background”, something that exposed “the ugly undercurrent of intolerance that still runs through southern politics”.
However, the debate in Northern Ireland about the allegations of sectarian abuse directed at Humphreys during the election has little to do with the Áras, or, indeed, Humphreys, and everything to do with hopes, or fears, about a united Ireland.
Robinson and Allister’s main target was not so much concern for a Presbyterian living on the southern side of the Border. Instead, it was about how the issue plays into the united Ireland debate in Northern Ireland, and what impact it has on attitudes among unionists on how they would be treated, if it were ever to happen.
In a way, perhaps, t
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