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Most of the arguments made for and against a United Ireland are advanced publicly by individuals or organisations with skin in the game.

We're well used to hearing people attempting to make the facts fit with their own particular preferred outcome.

Not so, Fenton O'Toole and Sam McBride

in their new book, For and Against a United Ireland, in which they argue for and against

constitutional change, leaving aside as best they can any personal baggage they might carry

with them on the subject. I'm Mark Carruthers. Welcome to the latest Red Lines conversation,

and I'm delighted to say that Fenton and Sam are both with me now at Ulster University's Belfast

campus. What a view. Scary? Spectacular, isn't it? Yeah, it's very high. This is the new

Belfast, Fenton, and you're very welcome. It gives us an Olympian view, which comes naturally to us.

It certainly does.

Well, now, let's see if this is an Olympian publication.

We'll explore the arguments you put forward in plenty of detail in just a moment.

But I do want to start with the basic premise of the book.

It's not Fenton versus Sam, with one of you cast in the role of

arch-unionist and the other as convinced United Irelander. You take it, Fenton, in turns to

argue for and against. And I just wonder, how big a challenge was that? It's a really big challenge.

You know, I think both Sam and myself are not naturally behind the door when it comes to expressing our own views. I mean, we both write newspaper columns, you know, I think both Sam and myself are not naturally behind the door when it

comes to expressing our own views. I mean, we both write newspaper columns, you know, which is

giving your own opinion on things. And I've been doing that since the 1980s in the Irish Times.

So certainly for me, I did find it a very kind of cleansing sort of operation, you know, because you have to try

as best you humanly can.

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