No way. The British are still wildly racist (ethnicist?) against the Irish. In the E.U. with Britain, that British impulse would lack any direct common cause with any majority (although anti-Catholicism and reactive secularism certainly are a dangerous common cause.)
Even putting that aside, Ireland simply can’t form an equal partnership with the U.K. simply because it is so tiny. Witness Scotland, which voted 2-to-1 to remain in Europe, and which elected a unanimous slate of Scotland National Party., despite the fact that the Scotland National Party is leftist, and Scotland had previously voted quite conservatively.
How did that happen? Scotland voters felt that members of the Conservative Party would simply represent conservatives, but SNP members would be spoilers to any majority action. In other words, they settled for doing the WRONG thing most of the time so that they could do the SCOT thing when it mattered.
So now look at Scotland: they’d rather be in the EU among 20-something other nations than 1-on-1 with a single, much larger country. And you’re asking would Ireland want to join what Scotland is so desperate to flee its running into the arms of anyone — the SNP, the EU bureaucrats, even Islamofascist Syrian infiltrators — to avoid the bearhug of the U.K.
Only if Ireland offers reparations for kidnapping St. Patrick from England.
Not at all likely. The six northern counties are more likely to join the Republic. They voted, somewhat like Scotland, to remain in the EU where the Republic still is.
The vote percentages in Northern Ireland were pretty well split along religous lines, with Catholic regions voting to remain and Protestant voting to exit (i.e. for British Independance).
There are few in the Republic of Ireland today who would want union with the UK, where most of the Loyalists/Protestants have been ethnically cleansed since the split from the North.
The North is moving towards union with the South nowadays anyway because:
(1) This has been the policy of the British Government for the last thirty years to appease Irish Republican terrorists
(2) Because of (1) above, the population in the North is shifting (Loyalists/Protestants leave as Catholics move into the province).
Ireland should withdraw from the EU and join with the US, Canada and UK (and others) in a free trade agreement. NOT a EU tangled mess, and NOT a “trade partnership.”
As for currency, the could have a national currency again.
I think it is more likely that Northern Ireland would leave the UK.
Terrible idea.
The Irish would never willingly give up 800 years of grievance