Nick Laird on the Protestant-Irish identity

Nick Laird, poet from Northern Ireland, said:

"The complexities of being a Protestant, in that you’re Irish when you’re in Britain, but you’re not Irish when you’re in Ireland. You’re a bad fit everywhere."

Being Protestant and Bloody Sunday

James Nesbitt played Ivan Cooper in 'Bloody Sunday' in 2002

As Paul Bew reminded us, Bloody Sunday in Derry in January 1972 stands as the worst massacre of British citizens by British troops since Peterloo in 1819. Ruth Dudley Edwards said:

"Unionists wanted to believe – until Lord Saville proved otherwise – that innocent protesters in Derry on Bloody Sunday had been carrying weapons."

Ireland's Capitalist Crown

Just as Ireland had a "parallel Monarchy" in the form of the imperial Roman Church, so Ireland now has a "parallel Crown" in the form of capitalist bonds and debentures.

Ireland's venerated martyr James Connolly wrote in 1914 that "Ireland has no war with Germany, it welcomes the German as a brother struggling towards the light", and went further than David Cameron by calling migrants to Ireland "hordes", a "swarm of locusts", "boys of the bull-dog breed" and "Brit-Huns", making Ireland "Rotten" with a "new plantation". James Connolly wrote in a 3 part essay series titled 'Slackers'.

Unionists and nationalists write to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson

Oil on canvas By Sidney Edward Dickinson

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson coined the expression "self-determination", a catch-penny cry in Ireland. Dated August 1 1918, Edward Carson and other unionists sent a letter to the U.S. President which responded to the Nationalist Manifesto sent to Wilson in June 1918 and openly circulated. Mr Carson and his co-signatories wrote:

Edward Carson and John Redmond respond to the Easter Rising (May 3 1916)

Cartoon of Carson and Redmond by Percy Fearon, 'Poy'. 

On May 3 1916 the House of Commons convening for a motion titled ‘Disturbances in Ireland, Resignation of Mr. Birrell’. John Redmond and Edward Carson both spoke in reaction to the Easter Rising that broke out on April 24 1916. The Ulster poet John Hewitt said: "I accepted Sir Edward Carson and his twin, John Redmond, as men from the same country as myself, who had diverging ideas about the governing of it." John Redmond said:

1916 Revisionism

NBC presenter Brian Williams

E.L. Doctorow said "History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew." Napoleon said "History is a set of lies agreed upon." Jane Austen wrote in her novel Mansfield Park

"The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!"

Sinn Fein revisionism

Gerry Adams wrote about the 'Good Old IRA', equating the PIRA to the IRA that brought about partition 

Sinn Fein and IRA were not about attaining human rights but about attaining a united Irish socialist republic at the cost of human rights and human life. Most of the Civil Rights demands Sinn Fein claim the Provisional IRA secured through violence were achieved before the organization was even born at the end of 1969 In 1972 the IRA announced that they would rid Ireland of the British even if they had “to demolish Belfast brick-by-brick”. Martin McGuinness said around 1973:

"It doesn’t matter a fuck what John Hume says, we’ll go on fighting until we get a united Ireland."

Orange and Green, we're all Paddies

The Simpsons portrays Saint Patrick's day and the division in Ireland between Orange and Green 

Many Protestants born in Ireland strenuously and stridently object to being Irish.

To the outsider there's not a shade of difference between the Orangemen and the Green Gael, the planter and the native. The English, American and Europeans and the world see us all as Irish equally.

The murder of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo would have been like the murder of the Prince of Wales in Dublin

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated on June 28 1914. This event was the key turning points in twentieth century  history. The Archduke, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was shot in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip. The assassin was a member of the Black Hand gang, a Serbian nationalists group, whose aim was to free Serbia of the rule of the Austro-Hungarian empire. 

Irish teachers must be Catholic missionaries

Eamonn de Valera genuflecting at the feet of Bishop John Charles McQuaid

Michael Nugent wrote following the publication of the report, 'Irish school teachers must be Catholic missionaries,' that religious discrimination against the irreligious and non-Catholic is accepted as part of the Irish way of life, adding that "Irish school teachers must be Catholic missionaries." He wrote:

"Religious discrimination, like all discrimination, undermines the dignity of the human person. In this case religious discrimination in our education system has undermined the human rights of parents and their children. It also denies atheists and religious minorities from their right to access the teaching profession in a democratic Republic without religious discrimination.

Fintan O'Toole on "culture" and "tradition" in Northern Ireland

Chatting with Fintan O'Toole

Writing in 2000 Fintan O'Toole made three powerful points (here, here and here) about Northern Ireland and the issue of "culture" and "tradition". This can be read as a broadly framed analysis of parading and Twelfth July culture.

One, there is more to Northern Ireland that monolithic Protestant-Unionist and monolithic Catholic-Nationalist:

Culture Night - A middle class 12th

A cartoon of Belfast's Culture Night by Ian Knox

Newton Emerson wrote that the annual Culture Night shows how many extremely middle-class people there are in Belfast. Culture Night is, in his words, "A sort of middle-class Twelfth." He also wrote:

The inglorious Twelfth

John Hewitt, Ulster poet, at a 12th July march

Seamus Heaney wrote a poem, 'Orange Drums, Tyrone, 1966', about his experience of the Twelfth July:

'The lambeg balloons at his belly, weighs
Him back on his haunches, lodging thunder
Grossly there between his chin and his knees.
He is raised up by what he buckles under.

A Northern Protestant speaks to a 1916 commemoration

Belfast born Pat Storey at the 1916 commemoration event, 

The Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare Most Rev Pat Storey was invited to speak at state event to mark the 1916 Rising, described by the Irish Times as a "Catholic, republican commemoration". On May 5 2015 the northern Protestant, born and raised in Belfast, addressed the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Irish President Michael D Higgins, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and other dignitaries. Pat Storey said:

"It is not a part of my story. But I want, and I need, to try to understand it. I need to walk in your shoes generously. [It meant] relating to the commemorations of your community when I would rather remember wrongs done to mine."

James Connolly describes the 12th July

Born in Edinburgh of Irish Parents, James Connolly was a one-time British soldier turned Irish revolutionary leader who headed the Easter Rising of 1916. Connolly wrote 'July the 12th', published in Forward on July 12 1913, where he described his visit to a 12th July march:

"As this Saturday is the 12th of July, and as I am supposed to be writing about the North of Ireland in particular, it becomes imperative that I say something about this great and glorious festival. 

The Protestantisation of Southern Ireland

COI Dean Victor Griffin who opposed the Protestant ascendency in the North and the Catholic ascendancy in the South, was the first public representative of new-look Protestantism in Ireland said Roy Foster

Ian D'Alton wrote that the Irish Free State "was rescued by Catholics becoming Protestants." This was a formulation most prominently articulated by the recently deceased Eddie Holt - The Protestantisation of the South's middle class. Coincidentally I wrote in 2015 that 'The Calvinist Ulsterman is more of a Catholic Irishman than is commonly realised.' The religious proclivities of the North and the South have inverted.

Jamie Bryson - Latex Loyalist

Being born middle class but believing you're loyalist. 

Jamie Bryson is a middle class imposter. Just as Hitler wasn't German, Jamie Bryson isn't Working Class protestant. (I invoke Godwin's Law as a point of irony because Bryson does it so regularly.) This has been the grand sham of Northern Ireland since December 3 2012: The self-appointed loyalist big mouth isn't even working class.

Conor Cruise O'Brien - The church and school helps to encourage, exalt and extend tribal-sectarian self-righteousness

Cartoon of Conor Cruise O'Brien

[UPDATE - John Hume wrote in The Irish Times, May 18 1964, "Bigotry and a fixation about religious divisions are the first thing that strike any visitor to the North."]

Our parents are patrons of prejudice, bequeathers of bigotry. Churches and chapels inculcate hate. 

He was that Irish essayist and polemicist so "sorely deficient in Anglophobia". Conor Cruise O'Brien (who was satirised in the 'Gentle Black and Tans'), drew across the grain on so many issues. He was the arch-"revisionist", a charge he countered here. A controversialist and a man of irrepressible energies, we sorely lack his type today.

There is no comparison between the American and Irish struggle for independence

Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

American independence was an Anglo-protestant insurrection of European colonists against fellow colonists over confiscated lands. Irish independence was an uprising of the native Catholic and socialist super-Gael against the coloniser.

Ethical Irishness and ethically remembering Ireland's history

A young Michael D. Higgins

Irishness is about ethics, not ethnics. Michael D. Higgins said that his would be a "Presidency of ideas - recognising and open to new paradigms of thought and action". Through speeches the President has explored the importance and challenge of ethics in Irish life and Ireland’s relationships abroad. There are four select Special Initiatives which mark his stewardship of the Áras an Uachtaráin, one of which is the Ethics Initiative.