For a long time, people have said that the South has moved on from the North. Saturday on the Garvaghy Road suggested otherwise. People travelled from across Ireland to stand with a nationalist community in Portadown, and they came in their thousands.
Nobody makes a journey like that for a stranger’s problem. They came because they see the residents of Garvaghy Road as their own, as neighbours, cousins and fellow citizens whose wellbeing matters to them. That sense of belonging to one island, with a shared stake in everyone’s safety and dignity, is the root of the case for a united Ireland.
Supporters of unity argue that this kind of solidarity shows how much has changed. Many people in the South now follow northern events closely, travel north often, and talk about a shared future as something realistic rather than distant. Seeing the leaders of Sinn Féin walk the road to applause, and hearing the crowd cheer a message of equal citizenship for everyone on it, felt to many like a community that knows what it believes in.
There’s cheerfulness in that. A people who care this much about each other are halfway to building something together. If Saturday’s crowd is a sign of the mood, then the conversation about Ireland’s future is no longer being held by a few, but by thousands who want to be part of it.
Whatever your view of the constitutional question, it’s hard not to be moved by people showing up for one another. That instinct is where any shared future begins.
Very good jude