Frank - "Religion is the nine-hundred pound gorilla in the room."

Religion was an important factor once upon a time. But that was back in the time of the Reformation and Counter-reformation, in the 1500 and 1600s. The whole of Europe was convulsed in a religious 'civil' war at the time. Two factions of Christianity slugging it out: "Do you believe in God the way I do? No? Then take that! and that!" The devil must have really been enjoying himself. Religion was an important issue in the 1700s in Ireland when being a catholic barred you from most walks of public life, severely restricted your freedom etc., The Act Of Succession passed by King Billah (William of Orange) barred catholics from the throne of England - and is in force even today.

But catholic emancipation came with Daniel O'Connell in 1829 and it was an uphill climb to a better life for Irish catholics after that. It was in the north however that they tooka step backwards, as loylaists tried to drag their country into the late 17th century once more.

But at that stage religion itself had little or nothing to do with it. First of all, let me ask you - what are the differences between a protestant and a catholic? Not sure without checking Wikipedia? Then you probably have more idea than a number of the protaganists in the Troubles.

What 'Protestant' and 'catholic' really came to mean was a key to your cultural identity, origins, political outlook etc., If you were protestant it was probable -though not guaranteed (the protestant members of the IRA are often overlooked in this regard) that you had a certian view of the world order that had little to do with religion as such.

Some of these ideas are descended from the social Darwinism of the 19th century as 'scientists' seized on Darwin's theories to explain why Anglo-whites should rule the world. They divided the world into 'masculine' nations and 'feminine' nations and attributed characteristics to them according to their whim. Masculine nations included Germany, Switzerland, Holland and England - firm jawed, hardworking, rational, honest, sober, society-builiding etc., On the contrary, feminine nations such as Spain, Italy and Ireland (France hovered between) were the opposite: irrational, frivolous, lazy, dishonest, socio-pathic or clannish at best and so on. the same attributes were ascribed to men and women, and protestants and catholics in the same way. Underlying all this was the notion that the 'feminine' (Irish catholics) were incapable of self rule and needed the firm hand of masculine nations (English protestants) to rule them.

I'm sure there are many decent northern unionists, but up to more recent times, if you probed them on the subject, you'd find many had inherited these hand-me-down views of their catholic neighbours. "Don't employ a catholic - they're lazy and dishonest and they'll pack the place with other catholics" would be one kind of typical comment. Or "they don't want to work, they'd prefer just to get the welfare payments" etc., Indeed a number or Protestant firms in southern Ireland (I won't embarrass them by naming them) discriminated against catholics (probably for the same reasons) up to the 1940s with signs such as 'vacany - no catholics need apply' and moreover, were apparently able to get away with it.

So you see, it wasn't simply that northern (or some southern) protestants viewed their catholic neighbours with suspicion and condescion on account of religious difference alone, but on a kind of supposed perception of what kind of character accompanied that religious denomination.

Meanwhile catholics generally assumed that if you were protestant, it meant your ancestors came to the land as inavders, you discriminated against catholics, you supported political union with England. In fact it would make more sense to describe the Troubles as a fight between unionists / loyalists and nationalists / republicans than between protestants and catholics. This latter religious labelling only clouds the issue. It helps the powers that-be by presenting what is really a socio-economic struggle as a clash of two religions requiring no further explanation. That is how it was sold to the general public of both countries and abroad - especially by UK tabloids - so the real root causes and injustices were not tackled and the problem prolonged.

Weelittledrummer - yes, I agree, there are of course many decent unionists. But apparently not enough of them to have stopped the Troubles taking place in the first instance. They could have sent their more militant loyalist neighbours 'to coventry' and made such anti-catholic / nationalist behaviour socially unacceptable. Things happened because not enough decent people did enough to stop them happening that way, and because more people preferred to let them happen the way they did. They may be decent in their day-to-day interactions with friends neighbours etc., but yet they gave their support to a political system that favoured them over their catholic neighbours. I cannot account for every single decent unionist, but the general trend was to vote for governments that discriminated aginst catholics, reject those (like Terence O'Neill's) that tried to bring about some small measures of relief for catholics, and continue to support a system (either actively or passively) from which they benefitted, even if that system was unjust to their catholic neighbours.

ArdMacha - indeed, it's true. The UVF and UFF still have their guns and no-one is putting any pressure on them to disarm. They have no political ambitions in the south, unlike republicans, and so the southern politicians were only concerned with republican guns. Once the southerner's patch was secure and republican guns out of the equation, they forgot about any further decomissioning. The media share some of the blame here. they made a huge noise about certain murders committed by republicans since the peace deal (I won't mention any specifics) but hardly a whisper about several murders by loyalists over the same period.