when did we massacre all the protestants

Zebra3

vesp wrote: »

Originally Posted by vesp
On more than one occassion I have heard the term " black prods" used against people who had no association with any Royal Black Preceptory / Royal Black Institution....it was an insulting term aimed at them because they were "prods". Black also has associations with darkness, hell, the devil etc.
Ye do not have to hang around a gang of drunk celtic fans discussing politics or after a Wolfe Tones concert very long to hear such phrases. Just the same as I would imagine its not beyond the bounds of possibility certain people on the Shankhill for example may from time to time utter phrases like "dirty fenian". Low life and extremists on both sides would have their words for each other if pressed on occassion.

I have heard people (mainly northern nationalists) refering to northern prods as "black bastards" but my understanding of it was that the "black" reference came from the protestants assumed support of the Black & Tans.

Still not as worrying as all the pro-ethnic cleansing graffitti (such as ATD) all over Loyalist areas of the north.

Shacklebolt

vesp wrote: »

Thanks. On a more serious note, having been to Belfast on a good few occassions, I do not think "a Protestant company of the IRA in Belfast during the 1940's" would have been very likely. It would have been about as likely as a Jewish company operating for Bin Laden.

It was a fully-functioning unit described in detail in several books.

Fratton Fred

Zebra3 wrote: »

I have heard people (mainly northern nationalists) refering to northern prods as "black bastards" but my understanding of it was that the "black" reference came from the protestants assumed support of the Black & Tans.

My brother in law always refers to Protestants as "Blacks" supposedly because they have a black heart (Due to their non Catholic views:rolleyes:).

I was thinking about this thread the other day actually. There are a couple of "Older" lads that attend the same church as me and they were saying how they come on thier own because the rest of their family is Catholic. When they married 30ish years ago, their wives were forbidden from marrying in an Anglican church (By their own priest) and in order for the men to marry a catholic in a Catholic church, they had to either convert to Catholicism, or sign a "Contract" saying that any children from the marriage would be brought up in the catholic church. It's funny, when we had our daughter baptised my mother in law went on about the Pope being very clear on the matter and I had no choice where my daughter was baptised:eek: (It didn't mean anything to me at the time and we had already made the decision that our daughter would indeed be baptised in the same church as my wife, when we approached the priest, he too confirmed that despite our marriage being "Mixed" we were doing the right thing), the funny thing is, people don't realise that us "Prods" aren't really all that fussed what the Pope says:D

It would appear that state aside, the catholic church has had its own active programme of breeding out protestants, so in a country where the majority are catholics and there would presumably be a large number of these "Mixed" marriages, it is no wonder the protestant numbers have fallen.

donaghs

Interesting that in this long thread no-one has mentioned how the upper levels of certain Irish businesses like banking, stockbroking, insurance were dominated by Protestants until nearly the 1960s. And other industries like Guinness.

Definitely deserves some research as its not easy to get info of the internet on this specific topic. You'd hear older people mentioning that it was very hard to get a job or rise above a certain level in particular companies.
Could only find this one, which mentions that by the 1930s, the numbers of bank officials in the 26 counties who were Protestant had fallen to 50%.
http://webird.tcd.ie/bitstream/2262/2861/1/jssisiVolXXVI45_137.pdf

Fratton Fred

donaghs wrote: »

Interesting that in this long thread no-one has mentioned how the upper levels of certain Irish businesses like banking, stockbroking, insurance were dominated by Protestants until nearly the 1960s. And other industries like Guinness.

Definitely deserves some research as its not easy to get info of the internet on this specific topic. You'd hear older people mentioning that it was very hard to get a job or rise above a certain level in particular companies.
Could only find this one, which mentions that by the 1930s, the numbers of bank officials in the 26 counties who were Protestant had fallen to 50%.
http://webird.tcd.ie/bitstream/2262/2861/1/jssisiVolXXVI45_137.pdf

pre independance i don't think the "Glass Ceiling" for catholics is news to anyone, after then, i would say a lot has to do with nepotism (Which hasn't really gone away in a lot of industries). If only family members can get senior jobs in banks etc, then it would follow that Protestants (Being in those positions already) would command the more senior roles.

Snickers Man

Zebra3 wrote: »

I have heard people (mainly northern nationalists) refering to northern prods as "black bastards" but my understanding of it was that the "black" reference came from the protestants assumed support of the Black & Tans.

I always thought that was a reference to the Royal Black Preceptory.

Reminds me of a hoary old sectarian joke from the Troubles.

Why are the Northern Ireland police called Black Bastards?

Because they are, you see.

(RUC. Geddit? Oh never mind)

McArmalite

Snickers Man wrote: »

I know this is an old thread, Vesp but it was associated with a newer one so I just jumped on for a look.

You have on at least three occasions here claimed that De Valera said during a Dail speech that he condoned discrimination against Protestants in matters of appointments.

I would love to see the Dail record which shows this. Given that they are all online now, it should be possible to link to it. Can you remember exactly what he said so I can do a search? Or the month/year in which he said it? Or the topic that was being debated? Maybe you have the link yourself.

Do tell. I'm really interested.

Yes indeed, I'm also very interested seeing the Dail record which shows this form our friend Vesp/Pathfinder.

McArmalite

vesp wrote: »

Not at all. These islands were a safe haven from those fleeing from religous persecution in mainland Europe at the time. Do not forget that in centuries gone by that Roman Catholic authorities killed, tortured and intimidated tens of thousands of non-catholics in catholic France, Spain etc Ever hear of the Spanish inquisition ?

Not at all. Unfortunately these islands were not a safe haven from those fleeing from religous persecution at the time. Do not forget that in centuries gone by that the british authorities killed, tortured and intimidated tens of thousands of Catholics in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. Ever hear of the Oliver Cromwell and the Penal Laws etc ?

Shutuplaura

McArmalite wrote: »

Yes indeed, I'm also very interested seeing the Dail record which shows this form our friend Vesp/Pathfinder.

Another old thread. Vesp and pathfinder were definately not the same people.

After living in secular australia for the year and a half that this thread has last been active I have to say that the low level sectarianism that was (and possibly still is) present in Ireland wasn't in any way unique to Irish society. Australian society was incredably anti-catholic and very openly so in the past. Reactions to the church inspired campaign against conscription in WW1 are a case in point. The Bishop who was involved - Dr Mannix was Irish and he was basically accused by the pro - british empire elite of being pro-german and a traitor to his country becasue of his opposition. There is a road in Galway named after him that UCG students will know. Its a long time ago but around the time of the formation of the state in Ireland. I haen' checked but it would be an injustice if he isn't so honoured in his adopted homeland.

More recently the pope's visit to sydney earlier this year brought these tendancies to the surface again. I heard quite a bit of fairly bigotted slagging of the church. Amung my australian work collegues it was bad enough to get me a quite annoyed - and I haven't been inside a church in years and don't even think of myself as catholic anymore really (and definatly not religious!).

My conclusion was that Irish society, like any in the world isn't perfect and is certainly not exceptional in regard to the levels of sectarianism within it. Occasional jokes about black prods or tragedies like Fethard on Sea are very much more remarkable for their rarity.

So overall, I reckon that proddies should shut up and know their place and basically feck of back to England if they have a problem with the Irish. Yeah!

Fratton Fred

Shutuplaura wrote: »

So overall, I reckon that proddies should shut up and know their place and basically feck of back to England if they have a problem with the Irish. Yeah!

I wonder if Australians say the same about Irish Catholics

Shutuplaura

Definately, every weekend!

T runner

Dont really think protestants were politically oppressed in Ireland.
A full 24 senators appointed by the Cosgrave government were protestant, 16 of these were previously unionist. Collins guarantee to protect protestants were by and large carried out.
There were some murders but by and large the protestants were treated well and kept their lands. The situation compared favouribly with for example the french withdrawal from North Africa.
ATQ Stewart an historian from Queeens university in his book "the narrow ground" says that in general free state protestants were treated well as it was in the southern governments interest to do. He questions if this would be the case on the event of reunification due to a larger more problematic proportion of
protestants.
The treatment of protestants here also compares very favourably to the treatment of catholics by the protestant Northern government.
DeValeras speech is mild compare to dozens of anti-catholic drivel emanating from leaders there.
Stewarts point about the proportion might apply in the north where the catholics had a dangerous minority, and also the protestant government may have been acting with the fear of a potential minority.

Flex

T runner wrote: »

Dont really think protestants were politically oppressed in Ireland.
A full 24 senators appointed by the Cosgrave government were protestant, 16 of these were previously unionist. Collins guarantee to protect protestants were by and large carried out.
There were some murders but by and large the protestants were treated well and kept their lands. The situation compared favouribly with for example the french withdrawal from North Africa.
ATQ Stewart an historian from Queeens university in his book "the narrow ground" says that in general free state protestants were treated well as it was in the southern governments interest to do. He questions if this would be the case on the event of reunification due to a larger more problematic proportion of
protestants.
The treatment of protestants here also compares very favourably to the treatment of catholics by the protestant Northern government.
DeValeras speech is mild compare to dozens of anti-catholic drivel emanating from leaders there.
Stewarts point about the proportion might apply in the north where the catholics had a dangerous minority, and also the protestant government may have been acting with the fear of a potential minority.

Yes I agree with this. My own family background had both Northern (Unionist) Presbyterian and Southern (well, from Connaught, but ya know what I mean ) Catholic in it. After independence my great grandad who was Presbyterian but choose Sinn Féin moved to the south got married, raised a family and got a good public sector job. Never had any bother at all.

On my Catholic side ironically enough they suffered discrimination :rolleyes: One instance was my grandad being refused a job he was fully able to do in Guinesses because he was "an RC". Wasnt uncommon.

Also, the claims De Valera fired a Protestant librarian for being a Protestant in Mayo is also non-sense. The case was regards a woman named Latitia Dunbar Harris (I think, cant remember 100%) who applied to be chief librarian in Mayo but the County Council refused to appoint her because the position was advertised as requiring fluency in Irish, which she didnt have. After the initial refusal to appoint her, the government got involved and ordered the County Council to reverse the decision to appoint her which they refused to do. The government then disolved Mayo County Council and gave the woman a senior position in the Department of Defence if I recall correctly.

All of this happened in 1932, De Valera was in opposition at the time and only got involved in the 'scandal' after the government ordered the council to reverse the decision. He wasnt the head of government and had no power of firing her or dismissing her and didnt get involved in protesting her appointment due to the fact she was a Protestant and she was never 'fired' because she never had the position.

Also, another claim I have heard is When Craig boasted Northern Ireland was a 'Protestant state for Protestant people' it was in reply to De Valera saying the south was a 'Catholic state for Catholic people'. Thats also a lie, Ive researched that and can find no evidence he ever uttered those words. I have no doubt he was a devote Cartholic and the south was very Catholic, but looking over history, it would appear the south has made plenty of gestures to the Protestant/Unionists in the north, most of which are simply ignored and never reciprocated.

McArmalite

Flex wrote: »

Yes I agree with this. My own family background had both Northern (Unionist) Presbyterian and Southern (well, from Connaught, but ya know what I mean ) Catholic in it. After independence my great grandad who was Presbyterian but choose Sinn Féin moved to the south got married, raised a family and got a good public sector job. Never had any bother at all.

On my Catholic side ironically enough they suffered discrimination :rolleyes: One instance was my grandad being refused a job he was fully able to do in Guinesses because he was "an RC". Wasnt uncommon.

Also, the claims De Valera fired a Protestant librarian for being a Protestant in Mayo is also non-sense. The case was regards a woman named Latitia Dunbar Harris (I think, cant remember 100%) who applied to be chief librarian in Mayo but the County Council refused to appoint her because the position was advertised as requiring fluency in Irish, which she didnt have. After the initial refusal to appoint her, the government got involved and ordered the County Council to reverse the decision to appoint her which they refused to do. The government then disolved Mayo County Council and gave the woman a senior position in the Department of Defence if I recall correctly.

All of this happened in 1932, De Valera was in opposition at the time and only got involved in the 'scandal' after the government ordered the council to reverse the decision. He wasnt the head of government and had no power of firing her or dismissing her and didnt get involved in protesting her appointment due to the fact she was a Protestant and she was never 'fired' because she never had the position.

Also, another claim I have heard is When Craig boasted Northern Ireland was a 'Protestant state for Protestant people' it was in reply to De Valera saying the south was a 'Catholic state for Catholic people'. Thats also a lie, Ive researched that and can find no evidence he ever uttered those words. I have no doubt he was a devote Cartholic and the south was very Catholic, but looking over history, it would appear the south has made plenty of gestures to the Protestant/Unionists in the north, most of which are simply ignored and never reciprocated.

Good post. The allegation about Dev and sacking the school teacher in Mayo was first made by that bumbling idiot Garret Fitzthatcher ( Fitzgerald) back in the early 80's. He later retracted it, apologising to the De Valera family as far as I can remember.

Interesting also regarding the lie regarding Dev saying a 'Catholic state for Catholic people'. But ofcourse it's a 'fact' according to the west brits and unionists, even though they can produce nothing to substanciate it :rolleyes:

Fratton Fred

I think you are looking in the wrong place if you look to the government for the decline in the number of protestants in ireland. Maybe you could argue the government were weak and did not stand up to him enough, but i would say the biggest anti Protestant in post 1922 Ireland would be John Charles McQuad.

Snickers Man

Flex wrote: »

Also, the claims De Valera fired a Protestant librarian for being a Protestant in Mayo is also non-sense. The case was regards a woman named Latitia Dunbar Harris (I think, cant remember 100%) who applied to be chief librarian in Mayo but the County Council refused to appoint her because the position was advertised as requiring fluency in Irish, which she didnt have. After the initial refusal to appoint her, the government got involved and ordered the County Council to reverse the decision to appoint her which they refused to do. The government then disolved Mayo County Council and gave the woman a senior position in the Department of Defence if I recall correctly.

All of this happened in 1932, De Valera was in opposition at the time

I have consulted the Oracle, ie Gene Kerrigan's "This Great Little Nation" on this topic and can summarise it as follows.

In 1930 Letitia Dunbar-Harrison, a Protestant (naturally with name like that:D) was appointed to the position of librarian in County Mayo. The appointment was made byu the Local Appointments Commission which had been set up by the then Taoiseach WT Cosgrave to bring some independence from local party control to the task of assigning local public sector jobs.

The Mayo Library Committee, a sub committee of Mayo County Council, whose only role in the matter of appointments was to endorse the LAC decision met and refused to endorse it. According to Kerrigan, they made no bones about the fact that the reason was because she was a Protestant.

They also added in the disqualification that Ms Dunbar-Harrison didn't speak Irish, but then neither did the Catholic applicant for the post who had failed her Irish exam.

The C na G government ordered Mayo CC to overrule its Library Committee; Mayo CC refused to do so and the government was then obliged to dissolve the county council.

Among the comments made at the time was one from the Gaelic League to the effect that Dunbar Harrison's appointment was "one of the worst things done since Cromwell's day", a manifestation of an earlier Irish version of what is now Godwin's Law.

In a Dail debate, opposition leader De Valera said "If the librarian goes round to the homes of the people trying to interest them in books, sees the children in the schools and asks these children to bring home certain books, or asks what their parents would like to read; it it is active work of a propagandist educational character...then, I say the people of Mayo, where..over 98 % of the population is Catholic, are justified in insisting upon a Catholic librarian."

Dunbar-Harrison was appointed but a boycott of libraries ensued causing most libraries in the county to close down. The government had to back down, and Dunbar Harrison was transferred to the Military Library in Dublin. The next issue of the Catholic Bulletin carried the front page headline "Well Done Mayo"

A year later Fianna Fail came to power and the dissolved county council was restored.

So it's nothing to be proud of but if that's the extent of De Valera "conding discrimination in public appointments" it was pretty well fudged.

cherrypicker555

csk wrote: »

I came across a reference to a Protestant company of the IRA in Belfast during the 1940's in a book called The Provisional IRA by Patrick Bishop and Éamonn Mallie the other day, maybe that was what you were thinking of ?

There was an IRA company made up of Prods on the Shankill, in the spirit of Larkin,Connolly et al, but disbanded in the early 20s due to the IRAs new nationalism/sectarianism. They used to lay a wreath in the early 20s to mark the Easter rising but more Catholic influenced IRA units objected.

From the mid 20s up to the late 50s, the IRA was split into two left/right factions, one republican/socialist the other heavily Catholic/reactionary/fascist leaning.

Snickers Man

I just realise I have managed to answer my own question.

Those who want to read the full debate to which I believe Vesp was referring can do so here


[edit...] and if they want to jump straight to Dev's contribution they should go straight to paragraph numbered 517.

Snickers Man

vesp wrote: »

in the thirties for example when DeValera declared in the Dail that if he had two applicants for a job, one protestant and one catholic, he would always give the job to the catholic.

That is a gross generalisation of what he actually said. Given that I have found the quotation, no thanks to vesp, I include it here so that people can see the context. It comes from the same debate linked to in my previous post. He was talking specifically about the case of appointing doctors to communities in which the majority were from one particular religous group.

What he said was: "everybody knows that at the moment of death Catholics are particularly anxious that their people should be attended by Catholic doctors. I say that if I had a vote on a local body, and if there were two qualified people who had to deal with a Catholic community, and if one was a Catholic and the other a Protestant, I would unhesitatingly vote for the Catholic. Let us be clear and let us know where we are.

Let it be clear to everybody that that is the position, that the Catholic community does want to be assured that the doctors appointed locally to minister to their people, who will be at their sides at the most critical moment, at the time of death, shall be members of the same religious faith as themselves"

So it is possible to take his quotations out of context and imply that he meant that he should choose an identically qualified Catholic over a Protestant in ANY public sector appointment. He clearly was not intending that. He was referring, exclusively in this case, to doctors.

Today such a concern for confessional consistency seems archaic, and indeed it is. By all means, look back and judge the decades gone by to have been petty and bitter, if not downright bigoted, but don't overstate the case by misrepresenting what was said.

Fratton Fred

Snickers Man wrote: »

Today such a concern for confessional consistency seems archaic, and indeed it is. By all means, look back and judge the decades gone by to have been petty and bitter, if not downright bigoted, but don't overstate the case by misrepresenting what was said.

amen to that.

Fratton Fred

That actually shows nicely why Protestants would pack up and leave.

No matter what the constitution says about religious freedom, that makes it very clear that Ireland is not a place where Protestants had the freedom they had previously. No matter what the Dail says and does, if that level of bigotry exists then why hang around.

Surely any Protestants studying medicine are going to look at Dev's comments and decide that there is very little pooint in them staying in Ireland and also despite the fact that the government supported the Librarian, it was obvious she would not have been welcome in the role. (Was it just a coincidence that 5 of the 9 people who voted against her appointment were priests, I doubt it) So why take it?

As I said about 200 posts ago, tough times and possibly tougher for Protestants, if they had relatives in England then of course they were going to pack up and ship out.

Flex

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That actually shows nicely why Protestants would pack up and leave.

No matter what the constitution says about religious freedom, that makes it very clear that Ireland is not a place where Protestants had the freedom they had previously. No matter what the Dail says and does, if that level of bigotry exists then why hang around.

Surely any Protestants studying medicine are going to look at Dev's comments and decide that there is very little pooint in them staying in Ireland and also despite the fact that the government supported the Librarian, it was obvious she would not have been welcome in the role. (Was it just a coincidence that 5 of the 9 people who voted against her appointment were priests, I doubt it) So why take it?

As I said about 200 posts ago, tough times and possibly tougher for Protestants, if they had relatives in England then of course they were going to pack up and ship out.

In fairness though the Protestant population in Ireland had been in decline in Ireland from the late 1800's and the biggest drop it saw was during thne years of 1910-1925, while Britain still ruled the country until 1922. And while the Protestant population did decline in the south, it did so gradually over the course of 40 or 50 years; its didnt suddenly just plummet. Heres a link to a graph actually, seems like a good website

http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/protestants_1861_1991.html

And over the 50 years the Protestant population declined, the Catholic population also declined. Most of the drop in the Protestant population was due to the Ne Tamerre which stated the children of intermarriages had to be brought up Catholic. While that was a completely ridiculous and backward 'rule', it was something passed by the Vatican, not the Irish government and it was followed by Catholics all over the world, not just Ireland. Thats how I ended up a Catholic myself, intermarriage. In most counties (exceptions being Cork, Dublin and border counties) there were insufficent Protestants to enable most Protestants to realistically marry another Protestant (alot of Protestant men in the south had gone to fight in the 1st World War and hadnt returned, increasing the problem), so most married Catholics. As I said befpre too, my own family on the Protestant side didnt have any hassle, and they were coming from a Tyrone Unionist background and had fairly Scottish sounding names

And while De Valera stated that about Protestant/Catholic doctors, it was him who nominated Douglas Hyde (a Protestant landlord) to be the first President of the country. And he purposefully kept Ireland in the British Commonwealth rather than declaring a Republic as a gesture to Unionist. When Belfast was hit in the Blitz he stated that ordering southern fire brigades to be sent to help despite the fact it endangered neutrality was the easist and fastest decision he ever made and that if the roles had been reversed he had no doubt we couldve relied on the north's assistance because we were "1 and the same people".

il gatto

My mother's side of the family are CoI, so I have the benefit(?) of seeing both sides in things. My grandfather was in the A Specials in Armagh for a time, but left as soon as he was called upon to do things he deemed unsavoury. When the War of Independence broke out,, he was at home in Leitrim. He lent his shotgun to a volunteer (IRA) up the road and his own family home was regularly turned over by the Black and Tans.
The CoI (that's prod to all the more "direct" of you) side of my family experienced practically no bigotry. They were poor farmers with an overcrowded cottage and a small farm like the rest of their neighbours. The first anti protestant sentiment raised it's head in the 50's when my mother and her sister were at school and the odd "jaffa" comment was heard.
When a family member died, the neighbours designated one family member to attend the funeral (albeit outside the church for many of them). The Catholic Priest did indeed forbid/frown on (era dependent) any other attendence.
Strangely at this remove from the foundation of the state, bigotry is more apparent today than in years gone by. Even though I'm Catholic and my father's family would be from a fairly republican backround, I attended a CoI secondry school. That meant I was verbally abused and even spat at because of the uniform. Playing a rugby match against a Catholic school meant a bunch of w@nkers turning up with tri-colours and Celtic jerseys to our school, as if somehow representing Ireland against what? A bunch of lads they wouldn't know were different if they weren't in uniform?
Even today I hear seemingly decent people make some pretty dispicable comments about "proddy B@stards" even though they may never have had a single bad experience dealing with one. It's like they seem to think there's none of them around so you can say what you want. And protestant republicanism seems to all but written out of the general pysche at this stage.
The level of ignorance about this section of our society is appalling, the casual bigotry is disgraceful and the rehashing of our history has no semblance to actual events. We pride ourselves on being mates with Polish Anoulka, Slovak Marek and Ukrainian Oksana, but we still don't mind calling Jimmy from over the road who you went to school with, played football with and sometimes have a pint with, a dirty, black, proddy b@stard behind his back. Why is that? Do we feel we have some sort of a right to? Like some perceived suffering our ancestors had gives us licence to spout bile at a certain group.
And as for the Gardai, I know of at least 3 protestant Gardai, so if that's any sort of a reference point, I'd say 14 sounds far too low.

Shutuplaura

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Was it just a coincidence that 5 of the 9 people who voted against her appointment were priests, I doubt it

Feckin priests. When a Sein Fein delegation went to the USSR to ask for help the Soviets asked them how many bishops they had shot. Reckon they had been well briefed on the Irish charactor.

drakshug

il gatto wrote: »

My mother's side of the family are CoI, so I have the benefit(?) of seeing both sides in things. My grandfather was in the A Specials in Armagh for a time, but left as soon as he was called upon to do things he deemed unsavoury. When the War of Independence broke out,, he was at home in Leitrim. He lent his shotgun to a volunteer (IRA) up the road and his own family home was regularly turned over by the Black and Tans.
The CoI (that's prod to all the more "direct" of you) side of my family experienced practically no bigotry. They were poor farmers with an overcrowded cottage and a small farm like the rest of their neighbours. The first anti protestant sentiment raised it's head in the 50's when my mother and her sister were at school and the odd "jaffa" comment was heard.
When a family member died, the neighbours designated one family member to attend the funeral (albeit outside the church for many of them). The Catholic Priest did indeed forbid/frown on (era dependent) any other attendence.
Strangely at this remove from the foundation of the state, bigotry is more apparent today than in years gone by. Even though I'm Catholic and my father's family would be from a fairly republican backround, I attended a CoI secondry school. That meant I was verbally abused and even spat at because of the uniform. Playing a rugby match against a Catholic school meant a bunch of w@nkers turning up with tri-colours and Celtic jerseys to our school, as if somehow representing Ireland against what? A bunch of lads they wouldn't know were different if they weren't in uniform?
Even today I hear seemingly decent people make some pretty dispicable comments about "proddy B@stards" even though they may never have had a single bad experience dealing with one. It's like they seem to think there's none of them around so you can say what you want. And protestant republicanism seems to all but written out of the general pysche at this stage.
The level of ignorance about this section of our society is appalling, the casual bigotry is disgraceful and the rehashing of our history has no semblance to actual events. We pride ourselves on being mates with Polish Anoulka, Slovak Marek and Ukrainian Oksana, but we still don't mind calling Jimmy from over the road who you went to school with, played football with and sometimes have a pint with, a dirty, black, proddy b@stard behind his back. Why is that? Do we feel we have some sort of a right to? Like some perceived suffering our ancestors had gives us licence to spout bile at a certain group.
And as for the Gardai, I know of at least 3 protestant Gardai, so if that's any sort of a reference point, I'd say 14 sounds far too low.

I'm a protestant. CoS. Presbyterian
I'm married to a Lithuanian Catholic and both kids go to Irish Catholic schools. I regularly get taunted for being an orange bastard. If I point out the bigotry I get abuse about Glasgow Rangers.
Even though I'm from Glasgow I never got mixed up in that very Irish origin sectarianism. Don't support the tic or the gers and never gave out to Catholics. Never got any crap from Scottish catholics either.
Here I get it regularly from people who moan about sectarianism. Hmmmm

T runner

drakshug wrote: »

Even though I'm from Glasgow I never got mixed up in that very Irish origin sectarianism.

That particular sectarianism happens whenever you have working class protestants and catholics together. Therefore it originated in Glasgow.

Never got any crap from Scottish catholics either.

Did Scottish Catholics ever get crap from Scottish protestants though?

Plenty of Irish Catholics still get crap from Irish Protestants

Look at Northern Ireland

T runner

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Surely any Protestants studying medicine are going to look at Dev's comments and decide that there is very little pooint in them staying in Ireland and also despite the fact that the government supported the Librarian, it was obvious she would not have been welcome in the role. (Was it just a coincidence that 5 of the 9 people who voted against her appointment were priests, I doubt it) So why take it?

One comment by Dev is hardly a reason to pack up and leave is it!

As ATQ Stewart (pro Union historian) said. "The protestants were by and large treated well in the free state, it was in the governments interest to do so".

People are generally made from the same stuff and if the Catholics left because of such trivialities there would be none left!

drakshug

T runner wrote: »

That particular sectarianism happens whenever you have working class protestants and catholics together. Therefore it originated in Glasgow.



Did Scottish Catholics ever get crap from Scottish protestants though?


Look at Northern Ireland

The sectarianism was brought over from Ulster. Maybe you feel that it is ok to stoop to that level? Personally I don't but the majority usually attack the minority, no matter what race creed or colour. It is wrong and neither Protestant or catholic should have to put up with it. That includes any attempts to justify sectarianism. Would you agree or are you one who can't see?

grenache

drakshug wrote: »

I'm a protestant. CoS. Presbyterian
I'm married to a Lithuanian Catholic and both kids go to Irish Catholic schools. I regularly get taunted for being an orange bastard. If I point out the bigotry I get abuse about Glasgow Rangers.
Even though I'm from Glasgow I never got mixed up in that very Irish origin sectarianism. Don't support the tic or the gers and never gave out to Catholics. Never got any crap from Scottish catholics either.
Here I get it regularly from people who moan about sectarianism. Hmmmm

Its terrible to hear that you have suffered this abuse from certain ''people'', you should report it to the Gardai. The next time somebody shouts something sectarian at you, just say to them ''is that the best you can do'' - it usually works when somebody insults me. I'm a Catholic myself, but my nearest two neighbours are Church of Ireland and Methodist respectively. I couldn't ask for better neighbours, we all get on really well and are there for each other if help is ever required. I really don't see the point in seeing a person's religion as a stumbling block, catholic, protestant, jew, dissenter, does is really matter?

il gatto

drakshug wrote: »

I'm a protestant. CoS. Presbyterian
I'm married to a Lithuanian Catholic and both kids go to Irish Catholic schools. I regularly get taunted for being an orange bastard. If I point out the bigotry I get abuse about Glasgow Rangers.
Even though I'm from Glasgow I never got mixed up in that very Irish origin sectarianism. Don't support the tic or the gers and never gave out to Catholics. Never got any crap from Scottish catholics either.
Here I get it regularly from people who moan about sectarianism. Hmmmm

I find people under the age of 50 much worse. Because religion has taken a back seat in many people's lives, younger people don't seem to know what religion people areound them are and just presume everyone is Catholic. Even though I am actually Catholic, I find it insulting. I asked my missus who lived in a house near where she's from. She said "some protaestant woman, can't remember the name". I just said that I just wanted the name and that as I wasn't selling rosary beads or hymn books, her religion didn't concerne me. She no longer refers to people in those terms .