A border poll in 2028 on the 30th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Former unionists, converted by the arguments for Irish unity, prominent in the campaign. Sinn Fein and the SDLP playing a part, but somebody outside party politics - Paddy Kielty is one suggestion - leading the campaign.
nionists are wise to no longer dismiss a united Ireland as a laughable notion because, behind-closed-doors, nationalists are having serious conversations about preparing their case for a referendum, and all sorts of ideas are in the mix.
Brexit, DUP antics, Stormont's continuing dysfunctionality, and Covid have combined to create an almost perfect storm, and transform Irish unity from pipe dream into feasible political goal.
Over coming months, discussions will become more public about the 'new Ireland'. Future health and education systems, pensions, policing and whether or not Stormont would continue to exist, will all be debated.
Sinn Fein has long called for a referendum on Irish unity, but its main nationalist rival has always been much more hesitant. With Brexit done - if not completely dusted - that position has changed.
"The SDLP are very serious about getting ready for a border poll," says Colum Eastwood.
"I believe the UK is coming to an end. I don't say that gleefully to rub noses in it. If you look at polling in Scotland, they're on course to win a referendum whenever they get one.
"Young people - nationalist, agnostic and unionist - see the EU as modern, liberal, open and progressive. They prefer it to introverted English nationalism. The route back to the EU is through a unity referendum."
The campaign for a united Ireland won't be focussing on '800 years of oppression'. "This isn't about the righting of past wrongs, it's about looking to the future," Eastwood says.
"Our New Ireland Commission will be launched in coming weeks. We have been having quiet conversations with people from a unionist background, and that is set to intensify at all levels of the party.
"Expert policy work will be done, but this is not just about producing documents - it is not a static process - it is about sparking debate.
"If unionism was clever, it would be calling for a border poll tomorrow because there is so much work to be done."
Under the Good Friday Agreement, the Secretary of State should call a border poll when a majority for Irish unity looks likely. Nationalists disagree on how easy this will be to secure.
"I can't see the Tories ever calling a border poll. It will happen only under a Labour government and that could be a decade away," one says pessimistically.
Even under Labour, nothing is guaranteed. While Jeremy Corbyn would have been much more amenable to a referendum, Keir Starmer is seen as sympathetic to unionists.
There is talk of a legal challenge if a Secretary of State refuses to call a border poll in the circumstances laid out in the Good Friday Agreement. Yet some nationalists don't believe it will come to that. They point to the comments last week of former British Chancellor, George Osborne, who suggested that few in London would care if Northern Ireland left the UK.
Bookies' odds would still have to favour unionists if a border poll was called imminently, but they face a ticking demographic time bomb, albeit one on a slow fuse.
The ending of the IRA campaign, plus the rise of Scottish nationalism, has increased the appeal of Irish unity among the general Catholic population. However, it is those religiously and politically agnostic here who will be key in a border poll.
Campaigners for a united Ireland will have to significantly extend their reach if they want to win.
The Scottish Government produced a 650-page white paper laying out the case for independence in 2013. There is no sign from Dublin that a similarly comprehensive blueprint is on the horizon.
Andree Murphy is a member of the civic nationalism group, Ireland's Future, which includes Senator Frances Black and lawyer Niall Murphy.
Speaking in a personal capacity, she says: "There is growing frustration that the Irish Government isn't calling a citizens' assembly and doing the preparatory work.
"Nationalism doesn't want to find itself in a Brexit referendum-type scenario where the electorate doesn't understand what its voting for.
"People will now be looking to the new administration in Washington, and seeing it as an increasingly important player in this conversation."
Paul Gosling, a Derry economist who joined the SDLP last year, says it's a matter of "when, not if" a border poll is held.
"Northern Ireland is already economically semi-detached from Britain with an Irish Sea border and closer economic ties with the Republic," he says.
"As the commercial links lesson with Britain, so will the social attachment. Business leaders will be going to do deals with Dublin, we will be buying our vegetables, flowers and so much else from the South. That will change things significantly."
Northern Ireland's low cost of living and high number of public sector jobs are reasons supporting the Union, but most economic factors favour Irish unity, he argues.
"We've poor infrastructure, low wages, and a very small private sector here. Our higher education sector is too small and doesn't focus on developing the right skills. We produce too many teachers, and not enough lab and computer technicians.
The economic impact of Covid and Brexit on both the UK and the Republic will be key to the unity debate, he says: "The South won't have a lot of spare cash, but there will be pressure in London to reduce the subvention to Northern Ireland to save money."
Gosling says the rise of secularism and the decline of the Catholic Church's power in the Republic has hugely helped the cause of Irish unity as unionists can no longer claim that it's a clerical state.
He stresses that only a broad campaign for Irish unity will succeed: "If it's a narrow Sinn Fein-led project, it won't work. It has to be a genuine non-partisan campaign drawing from right across the political spectrum."
Emmet Doyle, an Aontu councillor in Derry, agrees: "Sinn Fein doesn't have the power to win a referendum by itself.
"I think people will be able to leave their political baggage at the door and build a united campaign because the prize at stake is so great.
"Brexit and Covid have really awakened support for Irish unity. I can walk from my front door in Derry to Donegal in 10 minutes. There was a genuine fear of a hard Brexit border here, and people felt powerless to stop it.
"That frustration and anger pushed normally soft 'don't know' nationalists very much into a pro-unity position.
"Covid has also highlighted the craziness of partition. We should have had an all-island strategy to deal with the virus, not two separate ones stopping at the border."
The failure of the DUP and Sinn Fein to successfully work together at Stormont has also strengthened the case for Irish unity. Introducing voluntary coalition isn't necessarily a panacea as whichever big party isn't included in government will likely try to wreck the Executive from the outside.
The continuing existence of Stormont in a unitary state divides nationalist opinion. Some believe the Dail should be the sole legislature. Others think that unionism needs a home and that Stormont should be retained "although not in a way that could stymie the dynamics of a new state".
Kevin Meagher, author of A United Ireland: Why unification is inevitable and how it will come about, disagrees. "Keeping Stormont - which would become a zombie parliament in a country of just 6.5m people - seems pointless," he says.
"It might be better to adopt the British policy of powerful elected mayors for local councils and wider conurbations, giving communities meaningful control of their affairs."
Meagher believes that there is unstoppable momentum towards Irish unity. Northern Ireland is "limping on" but we are "in injury time".
He says: "A lot of 'teething problems' over Brexit will actually reveal deeper issues, especially when the €600m Northern Ireland receives from the EU each year disappears.
"Do farmers here think they will be treated as well by British ministers who have English voters to pacify? There are no votes in Antrim livestock."
Meagher, a former adviser to Labour Secretary of State Shaun Woodward, says that English people are increasingly concerned about their own affairs and Northern Ireland is a "far away place of which they know, and care, little".
He argues that a growing number of people from a unionist background will "make a hard-headed assessment" that Irish unity is "preferable to remaining in a loveless relationship with a UK that simply doesn't want to know".
Others believe that the number of unionists who can be won over to Irish unity is over-exaggerated. "It's a small percentage at best, not the 10% or 20% that some suggest," one leading nationalist campaigner says.
But it is not just pro-unity campaigners who will face issues in converting others in a future border poll.
Meagher says: "The challenge for unionists is that, having done nothing in 100 years to politically win over nationalists to the Northern Ireland state, it could be seen as a bit late in the day for them to be trying now."
