Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground

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Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. Interviewees include: Eileen Weir, Dee Stitt, Dawn Purvis, Chrissie Quinn, Clare Sugden, Toni Ogle, Kyle Black, Sammy Wilson and others. That may ultimately prove untenable given the rapidly shifting demographics but, for now, it represents the kind of paradigm shift in political thinking that is needed for real progress to be made. It was more - red top for number 52, make sure Mrs Murphy at 16 pays you for the cream from last week.

She has made award-winning television documentaries, including The Daughters’ Story about the daughters of the murdered musician Fran O’Toole of the Miami Showband. You get dragged back into the old divide,” she says wearily, noting how the traumas of the recent past so inform the stalemates of the present. But it is on the more personal, human level that “Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground” is really illuminating. With so many progressive people featured, why can't we create a fairer and more equitable society, with one education system, one health system and one progressive, forward thinking, properly green Ireland? Every year we publish a selection of books and pamphlets that address the key issues facing activists and trade unionists.Many feel that, as one interviewee puts it, “social issues have been neglected” in the constant manoeuvring over the national question, while there is a profound frustration with the Stormont assembly’s long, dysfunctional drama of stalemate and standoff. That frustration with things as they are is a constant in this fascinating and constantly thought-provoking book. So one person admits that their standard of living and the ability to own a house and run a car ‘matter more to me than the flag that’s flying above our country’ (122) and another, a community activist, concisely describes the reigning neoliberal orthodoxy of the DUP’s economic policies based around deregulated land development before concluding that she would ‘rather politicians focused on policies that eradicate poverty than deliver food parcels’ (90). Against the backdrop of social justice movements, Brexit, the centenary of the foundation of the Northern Ireland state, and the prospect of a poll on Irish Unity, McKay interviews a wide range of people from all over Northern Ireland.

McKay’s interviews thus manage to combine to make an important point: what looks like an absurd preoccupation with questions [End Page 204] of identity for those outside the region are in fact articulations of the hopelessness with respect to material questions for those who live inside. Some of the comments teether on the edge of sectarianism, but I applaud the author for not editing these out. Her latest book follows a similar format to that previous tome, in that it attempts – primarily from a series of interviews - to paint a portrait of Northern Irish Protestantism through the words of more than 60 members of that community. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves.That anxiety was already acute because of the looming possibility of Scottish independence and its ramifications for the union as well as the inexorable rise of Sinn Féin, a party predicated on the establishment of a united Ireland. It's almost impossible to separate my reaction to the interviews in this book from my personal experience of growing up in Belfast (not as a Protestant but Protestant adjacent shall we say) and my current view on the constitutional question. McKay offers a valuable insight into how ordinary people are coping with the looming fundamental changes that are coming. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters View image in fullscreen A Union flag is held aloft in Sandy Row, Belfast, during Twelfth of July celebrations in 2017. One person opines that ‘Protestant working-class people don’t have a problem with limited abortion rights.

This updated edition includes a new introduction, and provides the backdrop to her new title ‘Northern Protestants – On Shifting Ground’. Seamlessly weaves together personal stories and political events with deep emotional intelligence … Vital reading in all senses of the word.Susan McKay is an award-winning journalist, commentator and author of five books: Sophia’s Story , Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People , Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground , Without Fear: A History of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and Bear in Mind These Dead . With changing demographics, many protestant people are feeling insecure about their place in the union. Then there are Northern Ireland’s rapidly shifting demographics, which, as McKay notes, “are at a tipping point”. This book offers us a glimpse into the Protestant identity and we would do well to understand their fears and aspirations.