Protestants in Eire
By RAWLE KNOX
BY this time delegates to the recent Council of Europe may have decided that they know all there is to know about the political uneasiness of Ireland. While most of them travelled to Strasbourg half hopeful, half fearful as to where they might eventually arrive, the Irish delegation had no such megrims. Their aim was less to unite Europe than to let her know of the disunity of Ireland. Mr. MacBride returned home jubilant at having made most of the British delegation " childishly self-conscious and nervous whenever an Irish delegate spoke." He also told his countrymen: " For some time at the start of the conference people went about asking, ' What is this partition ? ' . . . Now they all know."
It is possible that they do, although when the Irish begin throwing stones abroad the plop they make seems to throw a disproportionate wave on the home shore. Strasbourg has heard that Sir Ronald Ross was a Kaiser's man in 1914 and that Mr. de Valera was a Hitler's man in 1945 ; that part of the island is forcibly occupied by the British and that this same " occupied " portion wants to be British. It must have been hard going for the Turks. No one at Strasbourg mentioned a forgotten band of souls, who seldom even try to draw attention to themselves, the Protestants of Southern Ireland. Yet, if there really is still an Irish question, they may be expected to provide a bigger part of the answer than anyone. For if these remnants of the long-hated ascendancy are yet content, much of Sir Basil Brooke's protestation is vain. If they are villainously oppressed, the Republic's claim to be a model democracy is made nonsense. And if betwixt and between, then there is material from which to form judgement. .
Earlier this year, during the election campaign in Northern Ireland, the anti-Partition League gave its speakers some interesting instruc- tions. They were told not to refer to Protestants as " non-Catholics," and to stress the fact that roughly one-third of the executive and clerical positions in Eire's banking, insurance, shipping, brewing and distilling firms were Protestants, a class which numbers less than one-fifteenth of the population. As an essay in religious toleration this would have been more impressive if Protestants in the South of Ireland were not, in fact, almost always called " non-Catholics "—a phrase which naturally gives offence to the Church of Ireland—and if Protestants had not gained their commercial success entirely by their own strong efforts. They have, of course, advantages. In the first place they have established a close freemasonry, natural in a small minority who realise that Mammon will help only those who help themselves. In the second, they receive an education on the whole more liberal and of a higher standard than the Roman Catholics, whose schools have not yet entirely recovered from an era of being confined to the hedgerows by the British. There are Irish Protestants who will tell you that the Roman Catholics are always conscious of the inferiority clamped on them by a restricted
education ; I would rather say that the Protestants blossom with a belief in their own more liberal mentality.
It is also at least probable that the Protestants have the admiring respect of the Department of Finance. A recent enquiry, carried out privately by a Protestant firm, showed that over two-thirds of all the income-tax collected by the commissioners was paid by Protestants or Protestant-owned firms. This staggering figure is a comment on a often-heard Irish complaint that the farmer pays little or no tax and that the new businesses which puffed up under the tariff show too small a turnover and too large an expense-sheet. There are therefore reasons, other than purely democratic, for the fact that the religious toleration of which the Dublin Government boasts does really exist. But it is only fair to add that the very great majority of Roman Catholics in Southern Ireland, from members of the Government downwards, are passively incurious about the religion of their friends and acquaintances. A Northerner, introduced to a stranger, will ask—as soon as he is out of earshot- " Is he one of us ? " A Southerner simply does not need to know. At the same time, if any Protestant were foolish enough to show himself an active Unionist, he would be unlikely to sleep well at night. Burning the Union Jack outside Trinity College is a popular sport on days of Republican rejoicing, and I cannot believe that a Unionist meeting in O'Connell Street—if such a wonderful gathering of ex-colonels and returned sahibs can be conceived—would run its full length without forcible interruption.
But this State which tries so hard not to tread on the toes of its religious minority does also have a Constitution which places the Roman Catholic Church in a place of special prominence ; and there is no doubt that the hierarchy does indulge in a number of pinpricks which the Protestants receive as sword-thrusts. There is, for instance, Bishop Browne of Galway, who a few years ago was suc- cessfully urging the farmers of his county to bar their lands to the Galway Blazers Hunt, on the grounds that the joint master was a lady who had been through the divorce courts (as the innocent party). Three months ago he was somewhat confusedly objecting to the Government grant to Trinity College, and now he is in the midst of an argument with his County Manager about the proposed site of a new school. This last quarrel is no concern of Protestants, but it is of some interest to democrats that the Bishop, while magnani- mously admitting that the County Manager (a good Catholic) is no Communist, says: "The thing you were doing was precisely what the Communists seek to achieve—the creation of difficulties for Catholic schools—and the reasons given, traffic and public health, are precisely the pretexts made use of by anti-Church elements in other countries."
But apart from the idiosyncrasies of Bishop Browne, who is not always taken seriously by his flock, there are such constant reminders as the Lenten letter from Archbishop McQuaid of Dublin, who annually rehearses a prohibition on Roman Catholics entering Trinity College and on marrying Protestants. Though for the last few years it has been possible to make a " mixed marriage " in Eire, it has been by no means easy. Even when the Roman Catholic party has been given dispensation and the other has promised to bring up the children in the Roman faith, many priests simply will not perform the ceremony. Where one can be found who will, Mass may not be said nor any music played. If the wedding is reported in the Press the name of the church may not be mentioned.
Two recent happenings may show how nearly and sharply awkwardness lies beneath the benign social surface. At a meeting of the Co. Meath Hospital Board a large number of people attended who had never been seen before at this function. As a result of the voting most of the Protestant members of the Board (which was normally re-elected annually) were dismissed. A number of Roman Catholics resigned later in protest against the way in which the elections were carried out. One of the defeated Protestants said later : " I know that people were canvassed to pay two guineas to put the skids under those who were on the board." She challenged Cell Six of the Knights of Columbanus to deny their responsibility if they felt so inclined, but no denial has yet been issued. The other occasion was the funeral of Eire's first President, Dr. Douglas Hyde. Owing to the Bishops' prohibition against Roman Catholics attending Protestant services, all the members of the Cabinet had to wait out- side St. Patrick's Cathedral until the ceremony was ended. It was not a sight which looked well for the unity of the country.
It is worth mentioning these things, not because they are vitally important in themselves, but because they do give Irish Protestants an uneasy feeling which, by the time it has reached the Six Counties, becomes violent indigestion. Yet a prickliness between the Churches has existed for centuries, and citizens of most countries in the world have at least discovered ways of not getting scratched. The problem of Irish Protestants is still not so much the Roman Catholic Church as their own divided loyalty. At this year's Synod of the Church of Ireland, which took place after the Eire Government's decision to declare an independent republic, Dr. Gregg, the Primate of All Ireland, said that he had received a flood of letters, many begging him not to change the prayer for the Royal family, others urging just the opposite. Some Protestants of Eire have become devout Republicans, but many more have not ; what is the Church of Ireland, which exists as one body throughout the thirty-two counties, to do ? One letter-writer to the Irish Times described the dilemma as a "choice between disobedience and insincerity." And if the Belfast Government, for reasons of economy or even sheer convenience, were one day persuaded that a united Ireland would be to the good of all, the horrid difficulty would materialise in almost similar shrouds. Would the Government of Ireland still think it treacherous for a person to believe that the country's happiest future lay in union with Britain ? For there would be a permanent minority of almost twenty per cent who would so believe. It is a problem which the Dublin Republicans have not sincerely faced and which would have taken a deal of explaining to the delegates at Strasbourg.
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