A research project is to get under way shortly to discover why Donegal's 13,000 Protestants are reluctant to get involved in their local communities and to examine attitudes that often prevent them from applying for public service jobs.
Figures from the 1991 census showed that Protestants made up 10 per cent of the county's population, but it is believed that numbers may have fallen since.
Mr Ian McCracken, a development officer with Derry and Raphoe Action, the group carrying out the research, said Protestants had suffered from their reluctance to get involved in community development or take advantage of available funding.
"Many little congregations see themselves as shrinking and tend to retreat into the corner," he said.
Mr McCracken, a retired teacher from St Johnston near the Derry Border, stressed, however, that he did not believe Protestants had been discriminated against by the Southern authorities. "I feel we have been very fairly treated in this State," he said.
Derry and Raphoe Action was set up in 1987 to encourage Protestants to play a more active role in community development. It covers Cos Tyrone, Derry and Donegal.
Protestants in Donegal live mainly in the east of the county and have traditionally been involved in agriculture. Greater intensification of farming and the general fall in farm incomes mean many are now being forced to leave the land.
Mr McCracken said he believed that unless farmers' sons were able to diversify, they would have no future in the county.
Protestants who leave Donegal to go to university tend to go to Northern Ireland, Scotland or England and many do not come back. Various reasons are cited for their reluctance to get involved in community development. They are a more diverse group than Catholics and there has also been a reluctance to seek funding from the International Fund for Ireland and the EU, as it was seen as "blood money".
While this has changed, some groups still have problems accepting Lottery funding because of moral objections to gambling.