Seldom has the unionist cause been so passionately and eloquently advanced. To a hushed audience in TCD on Tuesday night, a white-haired English MP gave a moving account of the injustices perpetrated on those in Northern Ireland who cherish the union. The Propositions document had been imposed on unionists, he said. The Framework Document had been imposed, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was imposed and was "a disaster for Northern Ireland".
His voice rose as he listed how his people had been betrayed by their own government. "A British government allowed a foreign government come along and have an office in the grounds of the seat of government of Northern Ireland," he exclaimed with incredulity, referring to the Maryfield Secretariat.
"It would be as if the Americans allowed the setting up of a hacienda on the White House lawn for the Mexican president to raise every issue he wants in relation to the treatment of Hispanic Americans."
He quoted "a newspaper you have down here - The Irish Times I think it is called - it's probably modelled on a better British model" and went on to suggest "good neighbourly relations" between the North and the Republic.
"It is being suggested that we are being intransigent. Nothing could be further from the truth." But it was a principle of democracy that the majority should have its way. Unionists should, however, recognise things that were important to the nationalist identity such as "stepdancing and leprechauns".
The remarkable thing about the conviction with which the speech was made was that the speaker didn't mean a word of it. Kevin McNamara, long-time friend of nationalist Ireland, former British Labour spokesman on the North and bete noir of unionism, had noticed that while five speakers from the nationalist side had shown up for the debate, there wasn't a unionist in sight. The ease with which he slipped into unionistspeak was deeply impressive. It was, he explained, because he and his siblings had been educated by the Sisters of Mercy, "and all my sisters were trained to say No".