An emigrant’s Protestant Irishness

Sir, – I want to congratulate Jonathan Drennan on his article in the Generation Emigration series ("Sometimes you have to go far away to realise where you're really from", July 1st) for his honest account of growing up in a Protestant house, school and culture in a particularly Protestant part of the island, Northern Ireland.

I also want to congratulate The Irish Times in giving space to a Northern Protestant to sound-out on identity and the reality of Northern living – something which is too much ignored, leaving it to rioters and marchers to paint a black and white cartoon of Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland isn’t as backward as the stereotypes would suggest, it is populated by people every bit as progressive as the South.

It’s also important to know that people with a British identity in Northern Ireland aren’t all flag flappers and rioters, as the media mis-portrays.

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However, the Northern middle class aren’t blameless. Belfast poet John Hewitt, the Protestant answer to Seamus Heaney, castigated them as “coasters”.

When flags go up, middle-class heads go down. There is a degree of culpable neglect on the part of cosy suburbia, Catholic and Protestant in particular.

It isn’t all a story of omission. Think Corrymeela founder Ray Davey and rugby player Jack Kyle and their contributions. Middle-class Protestants do play a role and this unique Irish demographic – as typified by Drennan, as well as British-identifying people such as golfer Rory McIlroy (Protestant educated) and musician Gary Lightbody – deserve closer consideration, especially in this decade of centenaries. – Yours, etc, BRIAN JOHN SPENCER Castledillon Road, Belfast.