Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. So, in a spirit of ecumenism, I happily concur with right-wing tabloid controversialist (and DUP supporter), Katie Hopkins, who predicted the other day that Irish reunification is now ‘inevitable.’

Irish Times Journalist, Walter Ellis, an East Belfast Protestant by background, is another unexpected voice making the same argument. Writing in the staunchly-Unionist News Letter recently, he agrees that ‘the direction of travel is clear’. Optimistically, he reckons that within a generation Protestant-Unionists ‘will have found their place’ in a united Irish state.

Something is changing.

2017 is turning out to be the year when reunification crystallised into a coherent, evidence-based proposition with clear and growing support, both among the electorate in Northern Ireland, but also, crucially, among the opinion-forming classes.

The Irish media – on both parts of the island – has been full of chatter about the prospect. Irish unity is no longer the pipedream of old men sat in the back rooms of pubs lilting The Dying Rebel. The concept has become normalised. We have reached a tipping point this year and nothing, now, will ever be the same again.

Clearly, Brexit has played a large part in bringing the debate into focus. After all, it’s now plain for all to see that a border arrangement on the island if Ireland is entirely unworkable.

A light-touch arrangement – favoured by virtually everyone in both Dublin and Westminster – is utterly impossible if the UK leaves the customs union. It’s an open invitation to the smugglers and people traffickers of Europe to have a field day.

The British people – who voted for Brexit in order to take back control of their borders – will not look benignly on ‘the province’ letting the side down and flooding the ‘mainland’ with extra migrants and hooky vodka.

Of course, to implement a hard, physical border is entirely contrary to the Good Friday Agreement and, as the Police Service of Northern Ireland has repeatedly pointed out, makes their officers – or, (if British ministers were ever mad enough to deploy them), British soldiers – sitting ducks. It is not hyperbolic to claim that a hard border actually risks reigniting the troubles.

But Brexit is merely an accelerant poured over the dry tinder of electoral, demographic and constitutional changes that will deliver a united Ireland whether or not Britain self-ejects from the European Union.

Long-term population changes, as well as Unionists’ sheer lack of generosity towards Northern nationalists, makes unity inevitable on its own. Unionism will reap what it has sowed; content, as it is, to keep repeating the mistakes of the past.

Gerrymandering boundaries, municipal corruption and the suppression of the civil rights movement have given way to unionists’ belligerent refusal to allow an Irish language act to be introduced. Unionism has little crossover appeal – and never will have.

Across the Irish Sea, the ferment in Scotland and the palpable tumult in British politics could see a second referendum on Scottish independence in the next few years, with nationalist demands for separation turbo-charged by the anger of pro-European Scots who resent being forced out of the EU by the English.

Moreover, it is entirely feasible to see Jeremy Corbyn – a long-term Irish republican sympathiser – emerging as Prime Minister if Theresa May’s shambolic government collapses before 2022 (a near racing certainty). In case unionists had not noticed, we are truly through the looking glass these days.

Something else has altered in 2017.

Unionism is now in precipitous decline as an electoral force. Forget the DUP’s deal with the Tories – that’s little more than a discountable footnote in British political history. The Tories regard them as little more than useful idiots, easily bought off with a dollop of public money that, in all likelihood, was coming to Northern Ireland anyway.

The real story of 2017 was the DUP’s poor performance in March’s assembly elections. Arlene Foster – a stubborn, incompetent, provincial solicitor – has proven to be comprehensively out of her depth as First Minister. Unequal to the task of cleaning-up her own mess over the Renewable Heat Incentive fiasco, she led the DUP to near cataclysm, with Sinn Fein just 1,100 votes off beating them into second place.

In any event, the First Minister’s job will probably be Sinn Fein’s next time around. Just thirty odd thousand votes now separate parties committed to remaining in the UK from parties backing Irish unity. That’s the equivalent of half a single parliamentary constituency. This is only going to end one way. (As for Foster, it is likely that the independent review into the RHI fiasco, led by Sir Patrick Coghlin, will curry Arlene’s yoghurt and she will be gone for good in the next 12 months).

Especially as a wave of enthusiasm for Irish unity is building among the young. Last month’s Lucid Talk poll asked 18-44 year olds whether they wanted to ‘leave’ and become part of a single Irish state or ‘remain’ in the UK. Fifty-six per cent wanted to live in a united Ireland and just 34 per cent opted for the status quo.

As a political project, the goal of Irish reunification has never been more confidently expressed or empirically justified. No wonder Gerry Adams feels it’s now safe to retire.

In contrast, Northern Ireland, as a concept, is utterly finished. We are now in injury time. As soon as its clear nationalism has the votes, there will be a border poll. Once it returns a majority for unity, Northern Ireland ceases to exist.

Is it really that simple? Yes, aided, I would argue, by the sheer paucity of coherent arguments for retaining the Union. It could be suggested this has long been the case, but even the most objective analyst would now question how and why the place will, or should, endure. The centenary in 2021 will be a hollow celebration. The argument for the constitutional status quo hangs by a gossamer thread.

Irish unity is now a medium term probability. Within five years, it will have gained unstoppable momentum. When we look back, it will be clear that 2017 was the moment everything changed.

Kevin Meagher is author of ‘A United Ireland: Why unification is inevitable and how it will come about’ published by Biteback.