The southern Irish state allowed the churches to police their respective flocks morally

My views on southern Protestants are, he says, ‘ill informed’.

As Gerald does not indicate where so, readers are none the wiser.

Likewise with the insensitivity charge. Does Gerald take issue also with Ian d’Alton’s somewhat similar observations (‘Protestant culture in independent Ireland was ignored, not vilified,’ June 1)?

On Gerald Morgan’s comments with regard to Derek Leinster, I agree with him and with Derek (‘Roman Catholics and Protestants were controlled by their clergy in Ireland, June 4) as is evidenced by activity stretching over nine years.

Derek is a victim of the mother and baby home system.

Alongside countless others, Protestant and Roman Catholic, he was locked away with his mother by a churches and state alliance.

Then, according to plan, he was separated from her and abandoned to a dysfunctional family that rejected him.

Clergy and supporters attempted to control women’s sexuality by punishing them when they became pregnant out of wedlock, particularly when (as in Derek’s case) a ‘mixed marriage’ solution was not acceptable.

Punishment was passed on to children.

Derek’s life and struggle for justice is testament to that.

Religious attitudes to unmarried mothers changed with the advent of the contraceptive pill and legalised abortion in the 1960s.

Attempts to control sexuality moved on. Like King Canute, in 1968 Pope Paul VI maintained a ban on contraception, while his church tried to prevent or roll back abortion rights.

Protestant churches joined in the latter, largely unsuccessful, quest.

It is being played out now in the last part of these islands attempting to deny women bodily autonomy.

The southern Irish state allowed churches to morally police their respective flocks, by allowing physical control of welfare, health, detention and educational resources.

The oppressive Roman Catholic atmosphere in the south camouflaged a toleration for similar activities within Protestant communities.

Since Protestants were, generally, more affluent and were allowed to maintain that position, that is one reason why protests were few.

Opposition came, in the main, from fed-up Roman Catholics.

Absence of a tradition of self-criticism within southern Protestant communities is one factor in the failure to champion the victims of the Protestant mother and baby, fostering and orphanage system.

The other is a southern media system obsessed (often with reason) with the faults of the Roman Catholic Church.

Victims of Protestant institutions, and evidence of abuse within them, receive minimal publicity.

I am happy to continue to help try and reverse that situation, as, I am sure, Gerald is too.

If, as Derek concluded, News Letter readers can help southern Protestants generally to step up to the plate, all the better.

Dr Niall Meehan, Faculty Head, Journalism and Media, Griffith College, Dublin

Full links to letters on this subject below:

Church laws, not Irish language, behind decline in Protestants

We southern Protestants are respected in Ireland

Files shed new light on IRA’s ‘ethnic cleansing’

Ethnic cleansing happened in former Yugoslavia but not to Protestants in independent Ireland

The Catholic nationalist Irish state alienated Protestants

Letter exaggerates suffering of Protestants in the Republic

Protestant culture in independent Ireland was ignored, not vilified

Roman Catholics and Protestants were controlled by their clergy in Ireland

Contribution of southern Protestants should be cause for celebration, not negativity

Derek Leinster, who chronicled suffering in Protestant care home, is a hero