Nearly a quarter of young Protestants in the border counties
of the Republic of Ireland have experienced harassment as
a result of their religious identity. This is one of the interesting
facts to emerge from new research, and it also shows that
young Protestants would have reservations about marrying outside
their faith.
The trend has been discovered in a special study - Border
Protestant Perspectives - carried out with the aid of community
organisations, including the Derry and Raphoe Action Group.
The survey found that only 13 per cent of 25 to 35 year old
Protestants would approve of one of their children marrying
a Roman Catholic.
This compared to 23 per cent of those aged 51 to 65. Only
six per cent of respondents were in mixed marriages.
The report also found that "Protestant participation
in civil and civic society is low. Much Protestant community
activity centres on the church."
The most worrying and perhaps significant finding of the
study was that 23 per cent of respondents conducted among
Protestants living in Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, Sligo
and Louth, said they had experienced harassment due to their
religion.
This happened mostly in the workplace or within educational
establishments.
The findings should provide food for thought, and for investigation
by those in the mainstream Protestant churches, who often
assert that they find no evidence of anti-Protestant bias
in the Republic.
Things have certainly moved from the days not all that long
ago when Protestant evangelical preachers were hounded from
villages and small towns for preaching the gospel in the open
air.
Today, in fairness, they are more likely to be welcomed in
such towns and villages. But in spite of all this, the South
can be a 'cold house' for Protestants, and this survey certainly
proves the point.
Protestants constitute just four per cent of the Republic's
population which, at the most recent census was found to be
88 per cent Roman Catholic, and it is difficult for such a
small minority to make an impact.
On a positive note, it proves that young Protestants, even
though they live in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country,
are determined to hold on to their faith.
It is hardly surprising, either, that they are so opposed
to mixed marriages, because in the past, this has proved to
be the biggest single factor in the decline in Protestant
numbers since the early 1920s, when two-thirds left the 26
counties due to intimidation in the aftermath of the British
withdrawal.
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