Polls [1] and [2] are polls of the electorate on different sides of the border. Both need to approve for unification to happen.

In Northern Ireland identification primarily with the UK or with Ireland is a defining identity issue for Protestant and Catholic communities respectively. The 29% figure for near term unification can still rise but campaigners for a United Ireland there face two problems: firstly that many in their own community broadly sympathetic to the idea of a United Ireland are concerned that changing the status quo now would lead to a return to the sectarian violence of a generation ago, and secondly that the Protestant community is slightly larger and also less flexible on national identity.