A WOMAN from Bray sent me a letter a few months ago to complain about something I’d written. She suggested I should try to relax more, maybe have a drink or two, adding, “. . . that’s what’s wrong with your sort, they won’t take a drink because they don’t want to enjoy themselves”.
She might just be on to something. Think of the fun some famously dour Northern teetotallers of “my sort” could have had if only they’d learned to enjoy a pint or two. People like George Best, Alex Higgins, Joey Dunlop and Darren Clarke, to name but a few.
In fairness to my would-be lifestyle consultant from Bray, she has obviously never met a Northerner of my sort. She and similarly innocent Southerners will be reassured, therefore, to learn that roughly equal numbers of Northern Irish Protestants and Catholics regularly enjoy themselves in the manner she suggests – as the North’s police, ambulance service and hospital casualty units will readily attest.
It is hardly revelatory to note that the two main traditions on our island do not know one another very well. Consequently, like the woman from Bray, each tends to fall back on self-affirming stereotypes of “the other sort”.
Often this manifests itself in benign and amusing ways. For instance, I’ve lost count of the times that a Northern Catholic has marvelled at me being one of 10 children, and asked jokingly if I’m sure my family wasn’t Catholic too. Each time, I dutifully explain that large families were the norm for the working class of both main religions when I was growing up. It feels a bit strange, though, having to explain this to people of around my own age, who grew up in the same Northern Ireland as me (before religiously exclusive areas were heard of) and who shouldn’t have to be told anything about their erstwhile neighbours of the dirt-poor Prod variety.
Perhaps some of them are suffering from “false memory syndrome”, as Danny Morrison might term it. Or, more likely, it’s a case of “myth supplanting memory”, as I would put it. Whatever the reason, it’s time we started to get to know one another again.
Let me address a few of the most common perceptions regarding Northern Protestants. Not all of us are religious bigots – in fact, the vast majority of Protestants couldn’t care less about a person’s religion, including their own. Whether it’s down to honesty, stupidity or laziness is open to debate, but the negative perception has arisen mainly because our bigots tend not to bother pretending to be motivated by something else.
On a similar theme (and casting another glance in the direction of Bray), the Northern Prod is supposedly a Bible-thumping killjoy. Some undoubtedly are. But then, aren’t most devotedly religious types, and I would contend that we are burdened with no more of those than any other tribe. Ours just happen to be louder, and appear blessed with an unerring ability to attract attention. Take the Rihanna incident. Of all the fields in Northern Ireland, she had to pick one owned by a Democratic Unionist Party councillor. I realise it isn’t scientific, but every Prod I’ve talked to has offered one or other of these comments: “She can dance in my garden any time she likes,” or, from the more image-conscious, “Isn’t it just our luck to be let down a bucketful by a Bible-thumper?”
I’m sure even the lady from Bray would agree these instances hardly denote natural-born killjoys. The Northern Prod is allegedly tight with money, and not given to contributing to charitable causes. If this were true, it could be proudly claimed as part of our Ulster-Scots heritage (it’s called turning a negative stereotype to your advantage, though I’m not sure whether a full-blown Scot would see it quite like that), but sadly it isn’t.
I have never known a Protestant church, community group, school or youth club that doesn’t raise money for worthy causes.
It isn’t tightness that is the Prod’s undoing, but an ingrained reluctance to boast about charitable work. He foolishly believes this should be undertaken wholly for its own sake, and therefore disdains any personal kudos.
Most emphatically, it is thought the Northern Prod, in his Britishness, hates all things Irish. Again, this is untrue. What he does resent is having Irishness so narrowly defined as to exclude him, while being ordered to adapt accordingly. Ask a Northern Prod what he thinks of the Irish Tricolour and he’s most likely to reply, “It depends upon who’s standing under it.” Unfortunately, too often the wrong people have been standing under it, masquerading as the true representatives of Irishness.
Ultimately, the Northern Protestant tribe is no different from any other, incorporating all of the same human weaknesses, strengths and talents. The other major Irish tribe is told that it must learn to “love” its Prod relatives in the North (usually in a tone more suited to a TV documentary about a semi-civilised tribe). Love, I suspect, is asking far too much. A little respect wouldn’t go amiss, though.