Protestants in Ireland lived in a cold house
A letter from Robin Bury:
In response to Ian d’Alton’s letter (‘Decline of Protestants was due to many factors’, September 26), may I point out that he has a distorted sense of reality about the fate of southern Protestants since independence and is known for being a serial supporter of the majority nationalist Irish state.
In terms of numbers of Protestants in the Republic of Ireland, in 1911 the southern Anglican community was 7.2% of the total population (after subtracting the military) and in 2016 it was 2.6% of the population, so had all but disappeared.
They went because of intimidation, burning of their big houses and because they were isolated and unwanted.
Historian Henry Patterson wrote that many southern Protestants suffered ‘low intensity unhappiness’ in ‘the anti-British and confessional nature of the Irish state, when compulsory Irish in schools aroused much Protestant resentment.’
Lastly, the historian Marianne Elliott wrote Protestants ‘felt isolated in a country whose ethos was now so demonstrably Catholic and whose national narrative bore so little relationship to theirs. Yes, Professor Foster (Sep 24), they lived in ‘a cold house’. Today much has improved but anti-English nationalism has increased with Brexit.
Robin Bury, Toronto, Canada