Leo Varadkar, the former prime minister of Ireland, spoke at the Keough School of Global Affairs on Tuesday, Feb. 24, about the prospect of Irish unification and the role a University of Notre Dame partnership with the Royal Irish Academy is playing in informing policy options on the island.
The event was part of Varadkar’s two-week visit to campus as a distinguished policy fellow with the Keough School’s Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies.
Varadkar was joined on Feb. 24 by leadership from ARINS (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South), a joint project of the Keough-Naughton Institute and the Royal Irish Academy.
ARINS was established in 2021 to dig into the most fundamental issues affecting the island of Ireland’s future. Through multidisciplinary research and analysis, as well as public events and dialogue, the project pursues two lines of inquiry. The first explores ways the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland can work better for people across two jurisdictions. The second examines constitutional options for and against the age-old question of uniting the island into one nation.
A prominent advocate of Irish unification, Varadkar said during the event at Notre Dame that he doesn’t think a united Ireland is inevitable. But he does think the Irish government should prepare for it.
“Sometimes nothing happens for decades and then it happens all of a sudden,” he said, noting that Germany was reunified less than a year after the Berlin Wall fell.
He also pointed to examples of political referendums in other countries — for Australia to become a republic, and for independence in Quebec and Scotland — that failed because voters weren’t provided with answers to all the practical questions involved.
“I think it makes sense to prepare (for unification). That doesn’t mean it’s inevitable, but it does make sense to be ready,” Varadkar said.
“That’s one of the things that’s great about the research that ARINS does,” he added. “Other people do research and do polling, but not to the same depth, not to the same detail, not to the same extent, not to the same academic rigor. I’m absolutely sure that, should events happen quickly, the work ARINS has been doing is the stuff that’s going to be pulled off the shelf.”
Irish unification would require answers and empirical data for a multitude of questions about a new state. What would be its government structure, official language, flag and national anthem? Would citizens in the north have the option to retain British citizenship? How could the two jurisdictions merge or maintain their separate health services, education systems and police forces? What would happen to pensions in the north if Northern Ireland left the United Kingdom? How much would it all cost, and how would that price be paid?
Furthermore, even if voters passed a referendum on unification, a strong minority in Northern Ireland would likely oppose leaving the United Kingdom. How could a new state ensure the minority accepted such a result?
“I don’t want there to be a million British people in a united Ireland not feeling that this is their country,” Varadkar said. “The success of a country is often judged by how it treats its minorities, so I want to make sure that we think about ways that we can ensure minority acceptance and minority consent if there is a ‘yes’ vote.”
The growing impact of ARINS
ARINS has already had a significant impact in just the five years since it launched.
More than 140 authors have written peer-reviewed research published by ARINS and other partners to inform academics, practitioners and policymakers. The project has also provided briefings to most major political parties on the island of Ireland, to the British and Irish governments, and to the British and Irish parliaments.
“For and Against a United Ireland,” a book commissioned by ARINS and published in 2025, has landed on bestseller lists and won acclaim while also serving as a model of civil dialogue.
ARINS is neutral on whether there should be a referendum on Irish unification and takes no position on what the outcome of such a referendum might be. The project has convened more than 100 events with a wide variety of elected officials, scholars and cultural leaders who together hold a balance of views on the subject.
Lynn Scarff, executive director of the Royal Irish Academy, said ARINS is about bringing people together.
“From the academy’s perspective, its role and its job is to bring expertise in at an early stage to explore those tough questions,” she said. “The fundamental premise is that everybody is entitled to make an informed decision.”
Patrick Prendergast, chair of the ARINS executive board and former provost of Trinity College Dublin, added that the project is multidisciplinary by necessity. While some questions about the island’s future concern politics and government, other important issues involve energy use and the environment, for example.
ARINS is well known on the island for its polling with the Irish Times on attitudes toward various aspects of Irish unification. But, Prendergast said, the project is also investigating questions about making the island work better for everyone, north and south, regardless of the unification debate.
“Lots of things can happen without the need to resolve the constitutional question,” he said. “When I look at some of the polling, that’s what people often say — let’s have a better health service, north and south, let’s have an education system that’s more integrated, north and south.”
Pauric Dempsey, executive director of the Keough-Naughton Institute’s Dublin office and one of the founders of ARINS, noted that many of Ireland’s institutions are from the 19th century and early 20th century. This is an opportunity to look ahead to the 22nd century and think about how things could be done differently.
“This is not a unification project. This project is looking at how to imagine a better future,” Dempsey said.
“That’s a compelling thing to do,” he added. “This project is about Ireland, but it’s bigger than Ireland. It’s also about the United Kingdom, it’s about Europe.”
Near the conclusion of the event, Varadkar observed that the unification debate is a potentially historic moment for the people of Ireland — and he emphasized people.
“It’s not about extending a political entity or merging two political entities into a new political entity,” Varadkar said. “It’s about building a state for 7 million real people who are living and breathing today, and making that state better than the two that we have currently. And that’s really exciting.”
Learn more about ARINS (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South), a joint project of Notre Dame’s Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Royal Irish Academy, at arinsproject.com.