In trying to understand unionist isolation in Northern Ireland, the first mistake is to see the North's Protestant community as a great monolithic mass, suggests Paul Burgess.
The recent brutal murder of Catholic postal worker, Daniel McColgan and the terrorist death threat to Catholic teachers, observers from outside Northern Ireland must once again look on in horror and incredulity.
What perhaps is significantly different in regard to reactions to the course of events is that this time exasperation is shared by the overwhelming majority of Protestants in Northern Ireland, who increasingly ponder the actions of a small minority that feels itself consigned to the political and cultural dustbin of history.
Community activists have been warning security forces and policy makers for some time, of the inevitability of backlash and the danger of anticipated violence from a community that has increasingly felt itself territorially under siege and culturally "squeezed" for a number of years now.
The power-sharing peace train has left the station, but significant numbers of disillusioned and disempowered loyalists in the housing estates of Ballysillan, White City and Duncairn Gardens never bought a ticket, let alone formed an orderly queue.
We might momentarily reflect on the fact that sectarianism in Northern Ireland is endemic, all pervasive and knows no class boundaries. However, it remains a statistical truism that most sectarian crime has been carried out on working class people by working class people in working class communities. Over 40 per cent of all deaths in the Troubles have occurred in West or North Belfast. Areas of greatest socio-economic deprivation correspond also with the highest proportion of violence. Forty- five per cent of the Province's unemployment and 65 per cent of the violence are in these areas.
At the heart of this dilemma then is a fundamental failure to understand properly the many faceted complexities and multi-faceted identifications in relation to the Protestant communities of Northern Ireland, who are normally represented as one homogenous, uniform whole.
In Rory Fitzpatrick's God's Frontiersmen: The Scots-Irish Epic, the author establishes his intention of exploding the myth of a monolithic Ulster Protestant community.
His assertion is that this over-simplistic caricature portrays the community in question: " . . . as if they were destitute of features, emotions or even intelligent life, without existence in time, a monolithic whose only purpose is to be the granite against which the national aspirations of an Irish people are dashed."
So what has led us to this dangerous impasse, where almost all the key actors and commentators have struggled to offer any qualitative analysis - beyond that of naked sectarian hatred - regarding the motivations of the Holy Cross protesters and those other Loyalist protagonists who nightly riot across the embattled north side of the city?
Firstly, we would do well to consider the role the media have played in representing the Troubles and the simplistic categorisation of the main protagonists. Distance, unfamiliarity and a need to reach a large audience in a rapid and accessible way have all contributed to the re-enforcement of collective stereotypes.
In the world of academia and research it can also be noted that ethnic studies concerning global social groupings tend toward analysis in terms of monolithic blocks, where in reality little or no shared cohesion actually exists. And those who seek to comprehend the conflict with recourse to established political or social theories reduce a myriad of complexities to apparent certainties. To do this effectively, proponents of whatever established code begin by anchoring their analysis firmly within the two traditions model. The vagaries and apparent contradictions of the Ulster Protestant community do not fit easily into accepted theoretical prescriptions and this has led to a frustration for traditionalists who may sometimes over-simplistically represent facts in order to fit theories.
Perhaps more dangerously, in the face of this futility, the integrity or legitimacy of the Protestant case fails to be granted its fullest and fairest representation in the political scheme of things.
Additionally, the role of religion in the Troubles - often denigrated as misleading and inaccurate in defining an essentially secularised conflict - should not be underestimated as a factor in determining monolithic misconceptions.
In attempting to determine a collective profile of this community, we are drawn to the simile of bereavement and loss. Jackie Redpath, a prominent community activist on the Shankill Road, says in a report by the Community Development in Protestant Areas group: "There is no doubt that in the Protestant community there was a great sense of loss . . . just like in a loss, when someone close to you dies or a relationship breaks up, there is always grief afterwards.
"It has five stages: anger, denial, depression, bargaining and finally, acceptance. I think that the same process is reflected in the community at large, when loss is suffered, in this instance the loss of power exercised by the Protestant community was taken away."
Therefore, we begin to understand something of how this community has been forced to re-assess, re-acclimatise, and ultimately re-define itself within the reference points dictated by external "others". Significantly then, as in most areas of contemporary Irish life, we cannot begin fully to grasp the complexities of its present day society, without first understanding certain of the political and historical realities which have fashioned it.
In relation to the state of Northern Ireland, it remains vitally important to understand the extent to which British government involvement through the Unionist conduit, dictated the nature and identity of the province, as we currently know it. And in addition to this, how the Protestant working classes were exploited and used, to copper-fasten a middle-class Unionist blue print for the six counties. The recent re-defining of political allegiances within the "Unionist family" would further support this. There seem considerable grounds for speculation that, in the absence of a constitutional imperative, voting patterns within the Protestant community would reflect political loyalties in class terms.
The emergence and role of the smaller Progressive Unionist Party and (former) Ulster Democratic Party in expressing grassroots, working class Unionism, may prove significant in any emerging long-term political solution. The relationship enjoyed between these parties and community groups and the role of the community activist in this process, cannot be underestimated. Worryingly, the DUP (and other no-campaigners) have perhaps made political capital from the fact that these parties have become marginalised and seemingly impotent at Stormont, when attempting to influence the bread and butter socio-economic issues that effect their constituents.
As the political map of the North has become re-defined, national and international attention has been focused on the Unionist communities of Northern Ireland.
However, as often as not, political commentators and government policy makers rush headlong into definitively and absolutely defining the Loyalist/Protestant/Unionist community as one, homogenous entity, sharing the same culture, traditions and historical and political experiences.
This interpretation grievously misunderstands the many and complex layers to what might be loosely called the Protestant communities of the North. It fails to incorporate the rural/urban differences; the many theological interpretations of Protestantism; the subtle territoriality of East and West Belfast relations; and perhaps most importantly, the dramatic socio-economic class identities - which will often, more significantly unite working class Protestant communities, who share value systems and life experiences - than unify affluent North Down Protestants with their brethren on the estates of Glynbryn and Rathcoole. Maybe that is something that opera loving First Minister Trimble might consider, as he ponders the current crisis from the leafy thoroughfares of East Belfast.
• Dr Paul Burgess is from Belfast's Shankill Road and lectures at The Department of Applied Social Studies, University College, Cork. His next book, The Reconciliation Industry: Community Relations, Community Identity & Social Policy in Northern Ireland, is published by The Edwin Mellen Press.