Ulster Protestant?

I chose the title for this blog without a great deal of thought but after my first post yesterday I began to think about the preconceptions which will form in someone’s mind whenever they see the phrase “Ulster Protestant”.

Begin typing the words “Ulster Protestant” into Google and you will get some idea of the image people have of those who adopt the title. The first suggestion is “Ulster Protestant culture”. Hit return and you will find (at least today) that the top result is a press release about a book written by University of Ulster academic David Brett. The article barely mentions the Bible but instead talks about “Ulster-Scots language” and murals of William III and a loyalist paramilitary murder gang called the Ulster Volunteer Force (not to be confused with their early 20^th centaury namesakes who fought with great distinction during the First World War).

Scroll down the page and one will see hits like The Roots of Sectarianism in Northern Ireland and articles about “Blood and Thunder” flute bands which are a common feature of Northern Ireland’s marching season.

The results for “Ulster Protestant culture” give one some idea into the media perception of what that label means.

So let me address some of these perceptions and explain to you why I adopted the name for the purposes of this blog.

I do not speak a language called “Ulster Scots” nor, do I believe, does anyone else.

I have never had any associations with Paramilitary groups and regard involvement in such as incompatible with Protestantism.

I do not believe that true Biblical Protestantism has perpetuated the conflict in Northern Ireland rather those who the media are fond of labelling “Protestant paramilitary groups” (although I have yet to hear them describe the IRA or any of the other Republican paramilitary groups as Roman Catholic or even Catholic paramilitaries) are nothing more than Godless thugs.

This perception of what an Ulster Protestant is has been reinforced by prominent political figures. For example, in March 2006 former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said :

"There are those, perfectly decent-minded people, who say the extremists who commit these acts of terrorism are not true Muslims, and of course, they are right.

"They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian.

"But unfortunately, he's still a Protestant bigot.

"To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it."

In the eyes of Mr Blair, therefore, it would seem that by choosing the name Ulster Protestant I am within a hair’s breath of falling into the same category as Al-Qaeda.

Similarly, in January 2005 the President of the Irish Republic, Mary McAleese said:

“The Nazis didn't invent anti-Semitism, they used anti-Semitism, they built on anti-Semitism but they didn't invent it. It was, for generations, for centuries, an element of the lived lives of many people who, on the surface, lived very good lives, I mean many of them would have regarded themselves, for example, as very good Christians. But they gave to their children an irrational hatred of Jews, in the same way that people in Northern Ireland transmitted to their children, an irrational outrageous hatred, for example, of Catholics”.

In the eyes of Mrs McAleese, therefore, the employment of the term Ulster Protestant congers up images of the Nazis and the gas chambers.

Needless to say, I reject either of these descriptions and find both extremely offensive. I think the blogster Archbishop Cranmer summed up my reaction to Mr Blair’s comments best (change a few words and the questions could equally be addressed to Mrs McAleese):

“Why does he juxtapose the term 'Protestant' with 'bigot'? Why not assert that such murderers are not 'true Protestants'? Why not talk of the Catholics who kill Protestants? And what about 'Catholic extremism'? Is it because the term 'Catholic bigot' is, to the Prime Minister, an oxymoron, and Catholic extremism a righteous and holy pursuit? Is it simply that in his mind Protestantism is synonymous with bigotry?

“It is a fact that many in the IRA are religious, committed Roman Catholics, and have the undisguised backing of their church, whereas the Protestant paramilitaries are irreligious and are disowned by the Protestant churches. Is the Prime Minister a Catholic bigot?”

Given, therefore, that the term Ulster Protestant seems to carry such baggage in at least some people’s minds (enough it seems to make white South Africans question if they really do have an image problem after all by comparison) why choose it as a name to blog under?

Well as I said at the beginning of this post the name “Ulster Protestant” was chosen without a great deal of thought yet it was the first name which came to me when I decided that I wanted to blog about religious matters. I suppose that says something about the love I have for the part of the world I have lived in all my life. Ulster (in so far as it has come to be synonymous with Northern Ireland and before anyone points it out I am aware that the terms are not strictly interchangeable) is my home.

Added to that, while I have spent much of this blog trying to distance myself from the media’s portrayal of what an Ulster Protestant is I do celebrate the Battle of the Boyne (although I am not an Orangeman) and the relief of Derry (although I am not an Apprentice Boy) I see both events (and indeed many others which are remembered with affection within what one might describe as the Unionist community in Northern Ireland) as occasions which should be remembered. Perhaps I will blog on some of these events and the way they are celebrated at a later stage.

But this will be primarily a blog which concerns itself with religious matters rather than dealing with things which are specific to the political or cultural life of Northern Ireland.

A second question arises. Why Ulster Protestant? Why not, for example, call ones self Ulster Christian? Surely that would have allowed me to have avoided many of the negative stereotypes the media and senior figures in society associate with the label Ulster Protestant?

Well I chose the name Protestant because I believe it is an honourable name which (as I have said previously ) some have claimed while having no right to it. In this blog I want to do my small part to reclaim the title Protestant and take a stand for what the great Reformers of the 16^th century fought and (in many cases) died for.

Added to that, the name Protestant still carries with it, I feel, something of the reproach which the early followers of Christ experienced when they adopted the name Christian.