2021 is being marked as the centenary of partition in Ireland, yet attempts at celebration have fallen flat. Nationalists remain opposed to the division of the island and unionism has become more divided and fragmented, with support for the Democratic Unionist Party falling following their unquestioning support for Brexit . The prevailing view is that unionist weakness and Sinn Fein electoral advances will eventually leads to Irish unity. The Author contests this. Partition was the outcome of the interplay of class forces. The revolutionary forces were within the working class and militant republicanism and both were defeated. If unionism is directly weakened, other forces, in Britain, in Irish capitalism, in reformist labourism and trade unionism and in the new constitutional republican movement will present the issue of Irish unity as a clash of cultures to be resolved by conciliation rather than constructing for the first time an Irish democracy in the face of continued resistance by the British and native counterrevolutionary forces.