Aoife Moore: If we want a united Ireland, we must start having the boring conversations now

Border poll proponents need to learn from Scotland and Germany — or even, you know, listen to people in the North about what matters to them in their day-to-day lives

Anyone in Ireland taking a view on a border poll would do well to look back at the hard economic realities eclipsed in our collective memory by the euphoria around the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, followed by German reunification. Picture: AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

A united Ireland is firmly on the agenda, whether many of us like it or not, and debates on flags, emblems, and what to do about Stormont and those who inhabit it are dominating the conversation.

But for all the romantic notions of a united Ireland, it's almost guaranteed that the bulk of the conversation will be incredibly boring.