It’s tiring to see the finger constantly being pointed at northern Protestants

Sir, – I was born into the Church of Ireland Protestant community in 1958 but do not belong to any tribe. Like the United Irishmen and Women, I have always believed that being Irish has nothing to do with my religious beliefs, as faith and conscience is a private and individual matter.

When it comes to bigotry and sectarianism it is tiring to see the finger constantly being pointed at northern Protestants, and Orangemen in particular.

Have we forgotten so quickly and conveniently the role that the Roman Catholic Church and the Irish State played in all of this?

In 1925 (and explicitly in the 1937 Constitution) divorce was banned in this country, in 1936 it was contraception, then the banning of the books.

In 1949 when our first Irish president Douglas Hyde, a Gaelic scholar, Gaelic League founder and fluent Irish speaker, died, the Catholic Church forbade Catholic politicians to attend his funeral at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, because Hyde was a Protestant. Hyde, regardless of religion, was always full of grá for Ireland and its people.

How long more must our media focus on northern unionism and Protestantism and neglect to shine a proper light on the role that southern Ireland has played in all of this hatred and division? – Yours, etc,

JOHN POWER,

Bunclody,

Co Wexford.