Northern Protestants feel isolated - Daly

The former Catholic Primate Cardinal Cahal Daly has said that "paradoxically, as Ireland becomes more globalised, Irish Catholicism is becoming less outward-looking in terms of missionary outreach to the world".

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland's Protestants, who had felt part of a "mainland" which was for them a bastion of world Protestantism "feel more and more misunderstood, isolated and vulnerable" as Britain was manifestly more secular, he said. The Cardinal made his re marks in a programme note for a conference at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, which will reflect on the state of Irish Catholicism today in light of the past.

Sponsored by the G K Chesterton Institute of Seton Hall University, New Jersey, USA, the conference title is `Chesterton's Ireland Then and Now - a Call for Re-Evangelisation'. It takes place from Friday September 14th to Sunday September 16th. Chesterton visited Ireland twice in the early decades of the last century and wrote two books about a country which he saw as a model of the Christian nation.