Sir, - I wish to take issue with Eddie Holt's confusion of class snobbery with religious identity (Weekend, November 18th). He perpetuates a sectarian stereotype that all Protestants are the wealthy descendants of the old ruling class. His definition of Protestantism is limited to the old established church, the Church of Ireland. He ignores completely the diversity of identity within Irish Protestantism, which also includes Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians, among others. Protestants in the Republic are descended not only from the old ruling class, but also from refugee communities such as the Hugenots, and from migrant workers (including sailors and dockers) from Britain.
Protestants (who are found right across the country, not only in south Dublin) are by no means all members of a professional elite. The 1991 Census showed that 7 per cent of Protestants belonged to "professional and technical" occupations, while 3 per cent were categorised as "administrative, executive and managerial workers".
Membership of the working class is not confined to Roman Catholics, nor is the experience of poverty and social exclusion. Mr Holt may be interested to note that, among the primary schools included in the rural dimension of the Department of Education's "Breaking the Cycle" scheme for tackling educational disadvantage are a small number of Church of Ireland and Presbyterian national schools.
He argues that middle-class Dublin parents who aspire to a genteel lifestyle send their children to Protestant, fee-paying schools. I point out to him that these parents have to bypass 25 Roman Catholic fee-paying secondary schools in the Dublin area.
What astonished me most about his article was his failure to once mention the word which for many Protestants (regardless of social class or tradition) defines their identity most centrally: Christianity. - Yours, etc.,
Anne Lodge, Inchicore, Dublin 8.