Sir, – For the second consecutive week, you have run articles that have in essence mounted a scurrilous attack on the Protestant/loyalist/unionist communities of Northern Ireland (“Loyalists feel sorry for themselves but narrative of oppression doesn’t hold up”, Fionola Meredith, Opinion, August 30th) and “No offence to George Best, but loyalists need another hero” (Donald Clarke, Opinion, September 7th).
There seems to be a perception at large that the rioting of recent weeks – by a minority from within these communities – justifies open season on anyone with the temerity to consider themselves British citizens on the island of Ireland.
The validity of cultural expression is an issue that is emerging as central to the protection and promotion of an enduring peace in “. . . that curious statelet”, as Mr Clarke would have it.
Those aspects of triumphalism inherent within the core of Northern Protestant community affiliation undoubtedly stymie a shared, universally “acceptable” notion of identity.
However, it requires only a small leap of lazy stereotyping to press forward the dangerous premise that there did not exist – neither could there ever exist – any legitimate or worthwhile expression of a valid or meaningful cultural contribution emerging from the Northern Protestant, Ulster unionist or loyalist tradition.
This spurious logic seems to advance the notion that – unlike, say, the great Protestant poets, playwrights and novelists who embellish the literary history of the Republic – no repressive, sectarian or reactionary state could ever produce art or cultural expression of worthwhile or lasting merit. (This analysis seems to comfortably sidestep the realities of a De-Valerian repressive, sectarian and reactionary Republic).
It remains undeniable that certain expressions of Protestant cultural identity rarely escape the constraints and representations of triumphalism.
However, recognising that past Stormont supremacy had a material basis built from the sectarian abuses of a Catholic minority also requires a postscript that many journalists, cultural commentators and artists seem reluctant to allow: that same thwarted cultural development and expression within the Northern Protestant community that renders them the butt of many an easy joke, can also be explained in the collapse of heavy industry, in the breakdown of working class neighbourhoods, in the reaction to a terror campaign waged against them (frequently by their own organisations) and in draconian constitutional, political and legal reforms implemented in Northern Ireland over the past 30 years.
Trying to articulate this experience nationally or internationally has not been an uncomplicated or well received one. The now infamous “flags” protests, form another example perhaps of a misguided and misrepresented attempt to voice legitimate concerns regarding the erosion of political and cultural identity.
Trite opinion pieces such as Donald Clarke’s do little to contribute to this most important of issues.– Yours, etc,
Dr PAUL BURGESS,
Senior Lecturer,
School of Applied Social
Studies, UCC, Cork.