Where the virus challenges borders

Weather warnings in Ireland show a strange phenomenon. Storms never seem to cross the invisible border between north and south. When a storm faces the entire island, each side appears to be left to confront it on its own.

Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is located on the island of Ireland but part of the UK, have taken different and often contradictory trajectories in their response to the threat of the coronavirus.

But the cross-border nature of the crisis has inspired new talk of solidarity. Exit polls from February's election in Ireland showed that a majority of voters want a poll in five years on reunification. How will the pandemic, which has forced a hardening of borders around the world, reshape this debate?

On an official level the Irish government’s response to the pandemic differed starkly from that of the UK. Ireland went into an initial lockdown on March 12th, announcing the closure of all schools, colleges, and public institutions. The country also ramped up widespread public testing, not only in hospitals, as has been the case in the UK. More recently, the Irish government has responded to the pandemic by taking over private hospitals and promising equal access to healthcare for all patients over the next few months. Covid testing and treatment will be free. The UK had its first confirmed cases weeks before Ireland but spent the first stage of the outbreak betting on herd immunity. On the front page of the Daily Mail, on Friday the 13th, Boris Johnson finally advised against public gatherings, warning: “Many loved ones will die.” But he still avoided the actions that other countries had taken to protect people. On March 27, Johnson himself revealed that he had contracted Covid-19.

Britain’s slow response to the virus posed a threat to Ireland’s ability to slow the outbreak, particularly when an estimated 10,000 Irish people returned home from watching the horse races at Cheltenham in the Cotswalds in mid-March.

Those conflicting responses came head-to-head in Northern Ireland. The delay in closing schools united many parents of different political beliefs. Sinn Féin’s representatives in the North and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), backed by the Northern Ireland Teachers’ Council, demanded that schools close. The center-right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Ulster Unionist Party waited for instruction from the British government. While parties clashed, many families looked south of the border for guidance and took action themselves.

 “Climate change doesn’t see borders,” Kellie Turtle, a parent in Northern Ireland’s capital city of Belfast, said to me over the phone. “Neither do pandemics.” The 39-year-old mother of two was one of many parents to take children out of school and isolate, unwilling to wait for the British government or the devolved, power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. Her mother worked in a school for children with severe disabilities and ten of these schools decided to close for the safety of students.

On St Patrick’s Day, when I spoke to Turtle, she said Belfast was quiet. Ireland had shut its pubs, clubs and even hotel bars. The infamous student street party in Belfast’s Holylands neighborhood was abandoned. Families marched in backyards anyway, joining a virtual parade organised by Ireland’s national broadcaster RTÉ.

Late that night, Leo Varadkar, who has been leading Ireland’s caretaker government since the most recent election, made an unexpected address to the nation. Varadkar is in an unusual political position: his party Fine Gael lost much of its support in the recent election, and a coalition has not yet been formed. Still, when he announced the shutdown, Varadkar told people at home that “we’re all in this together.” The virus, he said, paid no attention to borders or nationality.

Brexit had already left many in Northern Ireland to consider reunification as a way to remain in the EU. The pandemic is exacerbating a feeling of abandonment and anger many Unionists  (who want Northern Ireland to remain united with Britain) already feel towards Boris Johnson, Turtle told me. They believe that the British Prime Minister created an economic united Ireland when during Brexit negotiations he agreed to a border in the Irish sea. This would protect against the need for custom checks on the once militarized internal border in Ireland, but also separate Northern Ireland from Britain for trade purposes.

JJ O'Hara, a founding member of Border Communities Against Brexit who lives just south of the border in County Leitrim, worries the pandemic could mean that Britain will miss its deadline for a Brexit trade deal, which might place Northern Ireland in an economically uncertain position and raise concerns about the border again. No travel restrictions have been imposed on this border yet, which 30,000 people usually cross a day. Ambulances answer calls on both sides. He said that more people both sides of the border “are looking at reunification as an answer” to the potential isolation of Northern Ireland. This is certainly true in Ireland: popular support for a vote on reunification has grown in recent years.    

The pandemic is revealing new cross-border solidarities. Medical experts are now calling for an all-island response. Political parties both sides of border are pushing for the north and south to align their responses. Varadkar himself, who has criticised those calling for a border poll on reunification, said that, “We have to meet, have to work together, have to co-operate and share information.” Facebook groups have been set up to organise grassroots responses, with people posting offers of support both sides of the border. You can see the new formations of support networks on a map to crowd-source volunteers helping people in self-isolation: thousands of bright pins marking each individual light up the entire island, with no divide.