Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground

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It may be the main reason why, as McKay points out, the progressive, cross-community, pro-EU Alliance party under Naomi Long is currently gaining support from disillusioned unionists.

This book will go down in history as one of the best, expertly written authorities on this population and community. It is unfortunate that the timing of publishing deadlines perhaps squeezed out the ability to record the train wreck of a transition in DUP leadership that was only developing at the time she was writing her epilogue, and the reimergence of the UUP as a serious and marginally progressive force, partly off the back of Robin Swann's handling of the poison chalice of Health Minister during the pandemic (and over and against his previous ineptitude as party leader and the curiously coterminous Venn diagram of Brexiters and anti-vax covid-deniers). 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. Sure, I knew they existed, and they were identifiable by their different school uniforms as they quickly walked through 'our' estate on their way home. Now with 100 years of the intentional segregation of people on this small island based on their religion; it is timely to ask ordinary people how they feel.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). I could almost hear the voice of the conservative Ulster farmer who issued a damning verdict using only polite words: ‘The DUP seem very, very influenced by material gain’ (225). There was an initial wariness but the barriers soon came down, or as much as they could as the conflict was still ongoing. 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? 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.

More importantly, there seems to be a lack of willingness to compromise meaningfully with nationalists.

The most interesting voices here tend to belong to people who have made the biggest leap from one often inherited political belief system to another.

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His plea is echoed in various degrees of plaintiveness throughout the book, suggesting a profound frustration, particularly among the young, with the combative politics of unionism versus nationalism.

Despite that, it is a book worth reading to understand why it is so difficult to find a way forward in Northern Ireland in 2021. The rest of the interviews,snatches of conversation with people at Drumcree and historical analysis and context provided by McKay only serve to confirm the accounts of the former.But it is on the more personal, human level that “Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground” is really illuminating.