Rite and Reason: For the sake of its role in Ireland, the question of whether Protestantism represents a welcome diversity has to be teased out, writes Archbishop John Neill.
Four incidents stand out in my memory illustrating something of what it is to belong to the minority Protestant community. They span a period of 50 years. I grew up in a rectory. There was usually a girl who worked for my mother in the home. Often these girls belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and my mother and grandmother were not reticent in telling them the errors of their church!
I remember asking, as small boys do, the most awkward of questions: "Mum, how do we know we are right and they are wrong?" The answer stays with me to this day: "John, do you not believe in God?"
My memory must be flawed, and the judgment a bit harsh, but it reflects something of the inner confidence and certainty within a part of a minority in the Ireland of the early 1950s. There was a sense of isolation, but we did not feel under threat.
My paternal grandparents had left Cork for London 30 years earlier following the setting up of the Free State. Despite an English education my father, as the youngest of a large family, could not wait to return, and did so shortly before his ordination. His identification with things Irish was total.
The second incident happened about 30 years ago when I was a young rector in west Cork. My wife and I were friendly with local Mercy Sisters. Talking late into the night in our rectory, we would tell stories of the way we perceived each other.
I recounted some of the stories told to me in that parish that represented something of the fear and suspicion still alive in the Church of Ireland community. These stories related to pressures on "mixed" marriages, the taking over of Protestant businesses and the loss of Protestant farms. In all these stories, the Legion of Mary played a role, however mythical that was!
Then one of the nuns told almost identical stories whch were alive and well in the community. The difference in our respective tales was that, in her case, the sectarian agent was the Masonic Order.
The other incidents relate to my time in the west of Ireland, perhaps some 15 years ago. Each occurred as I introduced a new rector to a parish, and took place during the speeches at the social gathering following the liturgical celebration.
The first was in a town with a very good ecumenical spirit, and the choir of the local Roman Catholic parish led the liturgy. I spoke of the marvellous manner in which the "two communities" pulled together in that area. The next speaker, a civic dignitary, gently chided me for speaking of two communities - he only knew of one.
I was struck that evening by the fact that people there were ready to see themselves as one community with a rich diversity rather than as two communities living side by side.
Soon after, in another town not too far away, I introduced a new clergyman. The chairperson of the local urban council welcomed the rector to the town "on behalf of the Catholic community". This reflected the feeling that the Church of Ireland was somehow alien to the "real" community that was Roman Catholic.
Perception is important for the self-understanding of a minority and also for the ways that it is valued in society. In terms of self-understanding, issues of fear and self-confidence arise. For the sake of its role in Ireland, it has to be teased out whether Protestantism represents a welcome diversity within the community, however appreciated that adjunct may be.
Ecumenism has allowed a self-confidence to mature among Protestants that is positive rather than negative. My earliest experiences of confidence may have been negative, but there was little room for fear. Fear has been the most damaging aspect of the minority.
It has involved keeping "a low profile" and maintaining a distance. Fear may be based on both mythology and fact, but it is fomented through isolation and lack of self-confidence. Protestants, particularly from small rural communities, who have ventured out of the constraints of a tightly knit circle have found that, not only is their contribution welcomed, but that they grow in their own appreciation of their own tradition.
The role of a minority tradition within the Republic of Ireland is also deeply affected by factors external to that tradition. The issue of whether the Church of Ireland represents a diversity within modern Irish society or whether it is an adjunct to that society is relevant far beyond these western towns in which I discovered those contrasting attitudes.
These attitudes are mirrored in relations between the churches, the first being positively ecumenical, the second negatively sectarian.
This impinges on how Irish society defines itelf, either as richly diverse or as monolithic in culture, religion and ethos. Pluralism is not to be feared. The Church of Ireland is in a position to make a serious contribution to political and social debate, reflecting diversity even within Christian perspectives, an opportunity that it has not always grasped.
The Most Rev John Neill is Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. This article also appears in Untold Stories: Protestants in the Republic of Ireland, 1922-2002 recently published by Liffey Press