Madam, – Prof John A Murphy’s letter (October 9th) doubted Senator Eoghan Harris’s RTÉ claim of 60,000 Protestants suffering “enforced exodus” in 1911-26.
On my sums the Senator is wrong – by being too conservative. The true figure is higher.
JJ Sexton and Richard O’Leary gave firm statistics-based figures to the 1996 Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. Protestants made up 327,000 of the 1911 population. But in 1926 only 221,000, representing a 15-year 32.5 per cent fall of 106,000. These were ordinary Protestants, not Anglo-Irish gentry. But Catholic numbers fell by only 2 per cent.
Sexton and O’Leary held the “natural increase” would produce a loss of only 10,000 by 1926. Not 10.5 times. This demands explanation They conclude the 1922 withdrawal of UK troops and families reduced the total Protestant population by 30,000, while first World War deaths were 5,000. (30,000 may be 1-2,000 too high as it assumes many RIC also left).
What is the real 1926 figure for “enforced exodus” (Senator Harris)? By the above methodology, it is 106,000 gross.
Less 10,000 ongoing “natural” change, less 5,000 due to impact of the first World War, less 30,000 from the 1922 UK withdrawal. This is a massive exodus of at least 61,000 Protestants.
But in my judgment regarding RIC figures, the real figure for Protestants who suffered “enforced exodus” is close to 63,000. Senator Harris was close – but too conservative by 3,000.
What is also profoundly revealing is that the Protestant exodus from the South did not end with the untypical 1916-25 decade of violence. It continued to 1946, with 51, 500 or 23.35 per cent fall in the non-Roman Catholic numbers to 169,100, by the end of the second World War.
This phase reflects the impositions and ideology of the new State. A triple whammy of: 1. compulsory Gaelic in public service and education, 2. rampant anglo-phobia, and 3. the enforcement of Rome rule in relation to censorship, contraception and “mixed marriages”. This ethos produced its worst points in the 1951 Mother and Child debacle, and 1957 Fethard-on-Sea Boycott.
Prof Murphy doubts that 60,000 ordinary Irish Protestants were driven out of the new state. But the brute facts must be faced. It was not Anglo-Irish landlords who left in droves, but the shopkeepers, farmers and artisans – the people also murdered in west Cork in April, 1922, and across three IRA Battalion areas, in the most “active” Volunteer brigade, 3rd West Cork. It is also significant that the Cork Protestant exodus by 1926 was 40 per cent while the overall level was 32.5 per cent. Time we in the Republic re-examined our rhetoric about Northern Ireland being a sectarianstate or a failed political entity. We too have buried memories to unveil, and buried bodies to recover. The Mafia-style blind eye which veiled the vile sexual abuse of children, must not stop us from speaking out about the anti-Protestant pogroms.
The Republic must give up the mantra of “binn beal ina thost”.
There is nothing sweet about a silenced mouth. We have a duty to speak up for those Irish Protestants who were silenced in the past, and to stand up to those who try to silence them still. – Yours, etc,