Lack of tolerance towards unionists report

A report has found a lack of tolerance for unionists in the Republic and a tendency to scapegoat Northern Ireland and hold its people responsible for their own misfortune.

The report, Peace Building in the Republic of Ireland, was commissioned by the Irish Platform for Peace and Reconciliation, a group of 17 non-governmental organisations involved in peace and reconciliation work.

Members include Co-operation Ireland and the Peace Train Organisation.

The report finds a "general ignorance" of conditions in the North and a fostering of selective "cultural and historical amnesia".

"This distortion has many manifestations, e.g. allowing whole swaths of people to be airbrushed out of history if their faces didn't fit," it says. Examples given include the refusal to acknowledge the Irish people who fought on the British side in the two world wars and the belief that only Catholics suffered in the Famine.

The report criticises "rigidly nationalist institutional mind sets" and gives the example of the Catholic Church and the GAA as obstacles to peace building. It said these organisations had "created a culture of adherence to unrealistic political ideals".

"Within the Republic, there is also a perceived hijacking of the Irish language, music, arts, sport, etc by a particular republican constituency."

The media is also accused of under-emphasising the integrity of the unionist position and portraying unionists in selective and over-simplified terms.

The report's authors describe the teaching of history in the Republic as "sufficiently defective to allow a student to complete an entire education cycle without really learning the history, culture and beliefs of any other tradition or religion".

The lack of references to peace and reconciliation issues in the Programme for Government and the National Development Plan is also criticised by the authors. "This is coupled with the gross inadequacy of Exchequer support for non-governmental peace and reconciliation activity."

The report recommends that a conflict transformation agency be set up on a pilot basis to research, advise and inform on ways to work for equity and justice.

The findings were welcomed by the Reform Movement, a group set up three years ago to promote an inclusive society in the State.