A cold house for Protestants?

secret_squirrel

Nae bother

rsynnott

Sand wrote:

To satisfy your political mindset, Im like the vast majority of Irish people - a non-practising Catholic, who nonetheless cant avoid the fact that years of indoctrination through every institution of the state, from school religion classes to the angelus, cant not have had an effect.

Really? I decided it was all ****e when I was about 7 and the teacher in relgion had trouble answering actual questions on it... It had little enough effect in me except producing vague annoyance at attempts to indoctrinate. I can't help at this point being incredibly glad I shook it off early; by the time I realised I was gay, I didn't have to worry about that being an "intrinsic evil".

Blackjack

I suspect it's no longer a cold house for any, but a lukewarm house for all that live there?.

Dave Roe

The orginal Time article referred to doesnt quote where the statistic comes from. I personally believe that it is inacurate. I know of four currently serving protestant members of the Gards and I don't know very many gards in total. I cant belive that I just happen to know over a quarter of all serving protestants in the force.

The Patton commission took a detailed look at the reasons for under representation of Catholic population in the RUC (as it was then). The most important reason given by Catholics for not wanting to join the RUC was concern over the reaction of their own community. More important than believing that they would be treated unfairly within the force itself.
There are many reasons for that concern - not wanting to be seen to be part fo a force viewed as sectarian by their own community, but also not wanting to be attacked by republicans among other, interrelated reasons.

The statistics bear this out, inidicating that a catholic RUC officer was four times more likely to be killed by republican terrorists than their protestant colleagues. For a period in the seventies the IRA actively targeted Catholic police officers and UDR members. The proportion of catholics in the force dropped off drastically in the seventies and continued to decline - it was never a high proportion but prior to the "troubles" it was much higher than today. Obviously there are other reasons for this and you cant draw a simple causal link but it has to be big factor.

As an aside - one thing to bear in mind is that "protestant" is a very poorly defined term, and one that protestants themselves dont much like. Members of the reformed churches is better, (though not very snappy) and even it breaks down a little - churches like the Latter day Saints and Jehovah's witnesses aren't regarded as reformed churches per se but lots of people consider them protestants. Its a bit loose and wooly, a bit like the churches themselves.

Some Presbyterian churchmen dont regard Anglicans as being reformed, or at least not sufficiently reformed for their liking and dont regard them as "protestants" in their definition of the term. I've heard Ian Paisley say that the church of Ireland is "not a protestant church" - although that was probably twenty years ago, dunno if he's changed his mind since - not that I care much.

Its also worth remembering that "Catholic" isn't well defined either, its almost always used as shorthand for "Roman Catholic" but strictly speaking anyone who signs up for the Nicene Creed is "A catholic" - a member of the universal church.

More irritating to me (as an Anglican) is people referring the the Roman catholic church as simply "The Church". RTE do this all the time, as if nobody else in Ireland has a church at all.

deman

Hagar wrote: »

My uneducated, biased, bigoted view on this is that Protestants in the Republic in general are members of a social class that become Barristers not Gardai. I'm open to correction mind you.

Don't mean to be rude Hagar but your comment is as your say.... uneducated.

Dub13

Sleepy

Hagar wrote: »

My uneducated, biased, bigoted view on this is that Protestants in the Republic in general are members of a social class that become Barristers not Gardai. I'm open to correction mind you.

While I disagree with the sentiments behind the view, I think there's a definite kernel of truth to this.

Having dated a few members of the Church of Ireland and met quite a few of their extended family and friends from within that community, there simply wouldn't be an interest in becoming a member of the Gardai. Most would be aiming more towards the 'professional' careers.

Locked