Demographics is not the only factor. As time goes by, fewer people remember or are interested to remember Ireland as an entity (albeit within the UK). And it is 30 years since the crass folly of a "protestant parliament for a protestant people" was knocked on the head.

No paisleyite is likely to get elected (as happened in the 60s) on a manifesto of locking up the parks and swimming pools on Sundays. And the increasing power of the European union is rendering national boundaries ever less significant.

Northern catholics now see the rightly revered Martin McGuiness serving as minister for education, and achieving change for the better. Seven years from now he will certainly have put paid to the iniquity of selective (11-plus) education, and may well have seen the uni-denominational schools into terminal decline.

On the other hand, the value of the welfare state as a factor in encouraging catholics to stay with the UK has been devalued from two directions. UK infrastructure and welfare services have been under-invested for 30 years, while the Celtic tiger is booming, with high investment in health,infrastructure etc - albeit some of this coming through European regional development programmes.

But Dublin does not endear itself, with banana-republic fiascos like last week's referendum on abortion. Or the endless tribunals into corruption that constantly threaten to put government into paralysis. (Last month a TD was brought from prison to the Dail in police custody so he could answer a censure motion against him.)

Anyway, regardless of what way these issues pan out, it is not realistic to depend on the demographics alone. There is now such a thing as a catholic middle class in the north. Their commitment to a united Ireland will come nowhere near that of the diaspora at large. They don't like new initiatives of any sort, because every initiative provokes reactions that threaten their comfortable lifestyles, property values, etc.

To answer someone's question, I guess Trimble would fall in with the verdict if it went against him. But maybe a million protestants would not - and that would be Dublin's nightmare. Only a nightmare though - they would wake up to the reality that there is still a clear majority for the union. Trimble may be smarter than he has often acted.