Ethnic Cleansing of Protestants What the Irish Government and Republicans don’t want the world to know
What is genocide and ethnic cleansing?
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"Acts committed with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group"; and it consists of,
among other cruelties, "killing members of the group, causing serious
bodily or mental harm.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions calculated to bring
about its physical destruction."
In the light of all the foregoing evidence, and in view of the
catalogue of victimisation, abuse and harassment recorded in the
appendices to this analysis, it seems almost superfluous to examine
the damage inflicted on Southern Irish Protestants in the early years
of this century. Nevertheless, reference must be made to
discriminatory and persecuting techniques applied by the Free State
and later the Republic of Ireland, as it became known, against those
of its citizens who failed to conform or were out of step with the new
state's Roman Catholic ethos.
It is important to realise, to have it acknowledged, that despite
honeyed words, Protestants suffering now within Northern Ireland,
while it is still theoretically part of the United Kingdom, will fare
even worse in some all-Ireland structure. The message is stark:
Protestants are not wanted in Ireland - though a 2% Protestant
minority is useful for "show" purposes. There have been recent
attempts to gloss over the decline of Protestants in Southern Ireland
and produce cosmetic explanations, sanitised of terms such as
"discrimination", "burned out" or the more emotive "ethnic cleansing".
Such attempts should be treated with great caution as apologists for
Irish Nationalism are not averse to creating black holes in the
historical record when necessary.
A careful examination of the record and eyewitness accounts of what
happened eighty or so years ago is chilling, but is it also prophetic,
giving insight into the future reserved for Ulster's Protestants. When
recently the Public Record Office in Belfast's Balmoral Avenue opened
secret papers for the 1920s for inspection, they contained numerous
reports of Protestants, even professional people like doctors and
solicitors, moving into Northern Ireland having been boycotted out of
the Irish Free State. Thus history repeats itself as Ireland's Roman
Catholics attempt to rid Ireland of "heretics".
Far from creating in his part of the island a genuinely fair and just
pluralist society, in which members of minority religions could rear
their families, walk the streets in dignity, and in the words of the
Proclamation, “enjoy freedom of religious expression, freedom of
conscience, freedom of information, equal rights, and equal
opportunities,” de Valera gave Rome a free hand under a crude,
unfeeling system of separate development and religious apartheid which
would ensure that the Irish republic would become a Catholic state for
a Catholic people.
Over a period of years, the slow inexorable inevitable consequence of
this policy was the systematic progressive depopulation of the new
Irish state of its Protestant people. Justifying the sacking of a
properly appointed librarian in Mayo, because, though highly
qualified, she was a Protestant, de Valera argued in June 1930: "I say
the people of Mayo in a county where I think 98% of the population is
Catholic are justified in insisting on a Catholic librarian." He went
on to widen the issue indeed, and asserted: "a Protestant doctor ought
not to be appointed as a dispensary doctor in a mainly Catholic area."
Black South Africa comes to mind, does it not? There being virtually
no significant non-Catholic areas, the consequence of this policy,
nationally, was obvious. In effect, ‘Protestants need not apply’ signs
went up all over the Republic. Incidentally, it is interesting to note
the make-up of the Mayo Library Committee. It consisted of a Catholic
bishop, five Catholic priests, a Christian Brother, a Protestant
rector and four laymen. The voting, ten to two for sacking the
Protestant.
There are two nations on the island of Ireland, a minority Protestant
nation, and a majority Roman Catholic/Irish Gaelic nation. Dr
Heslinga, in his seminal work “The Irish Border as a Cultural Divide,”
states, "James's Plantation of Ulster made a permanent change in the
face of Ireland in the sense that it moved a whole new population -
can I say a whole new nation - into part of Ireland." Irish
nationalists, on the other hand, hold that all of the peoples on the
island are Irish, and those who deny their Irishness are deviants
bought off by the British, or colonists who have no right to be in
Ireland in the first place. Such deviants and colonists are to be
driven out. Boycotting is one means of driving deviants and colonists
out of Ireland. As the Provisional IRA expresses it, "Brits out!"
As the British state is secretly engaged in ceding Northern Ireland to
the Republic of Ireland, Britain tolerates the humiliations inflicted
on Ulster's diminishing Protestant population as part of the price of
an overall strategy which uses violence to promote peaceful change,
i.e. Irish unification by stealth. The Ulster Protestants are the
victims of Provisional IRA terrorism and of an elaborate strategy to
enforce their assimilation into an Irish Nationalist culture. There is
an almost total media black-out in respect of this example of
anachronistic racism within Western Europe. This issue has never been
debated in the British House of Commons or the European Parliament. At
this moment huge sums of money are flowing into Irish Republican and
Nationalist areas to the almost complete exclusion and disadvantage of
the people who are being assaulted.
Given the silence of the Government of the Republic of Ireland in
respect of the physical ethnic cleansing of Protestants by IRA terror,
and now the silent ethnic cleansing of Protestants by boycotting, it
is obvious that though the government of the Republic covets Northern
Ireland, it does not regard the whole population of Northern Ireland
equally as potential future citizens, but adopts a discriminatory
prejudiced and sectarian approach to the population in Northern
Ireland. The Republic of Ireland supports the interests of Roman
Catholic and Nationalist people but turns a blind eye or ignores the
sufferings of those who refuse to embrace an Irish Nationalist
ideology.
The failure of the British Government to protect the lives of ordinary
people from the depredations of the Provisional IRA, which was
originally set in being by “eminent and respectable” persons in the
Irish Republic, the Constitution of which lays claim to Northern
Ireland, must be viewed as one of the great political scandals of the
late 20th Century. Furthermore, that these calamitous and barbaric
events could take place within the jurisdiction and oversight of Her
Majesty's Government raises the most profound questions about the
nature of British parliamentary democracy, of a bipartisan approach
which has robbed ordinary electors of the protection which Parliament
is said to afford the British citizen, and of a deep cynicism, and a
secretiveness at the heart of political affairs which is inherently
dishonest about the intention of state policy.
Rev. Ian Paisley, an MP for a constituency where the boycotting is
taking place called for "an unambiguous statement from the Roman
Catholic Church and the SDLP on this new IRA strategy of intimidation
against Protestants" (Belfast Telegraph 27th September 1996). In the
News Letter of the same date, Ian Paisley made an important point:
"Even Protestants are being intimidated because they feel they're
being marked for going into shops." In the same edition of the
Northern Ireland paper, Alan Field, a spokesman for a pro-Union
pressure group stated that "many businesses had seen their profits
plummet by 60 - 70% in the past 12 weeks." Mr Field called for a
financial rescue package.
Two cases of intimidation that came to light involved Roman Catholics
who continued to shop in Protestant establishments. In the first case,
a woman bought a shirt from a Protestant business, and when this
became known, three Roman Catholic women beat her up. In another case,
a Roman Catholic neighbour spent a few pounds on groceries in a
Protestant store, but on her return home from her shopping trip she
received a threatening telephone call. As in Nazi Germany, her every
move had been monitored!
A discussion between two Protestant victims of the boycott from
different areas in the west of Ulster highlighted the crucial issues.
One victim, who had survived two shootings at the hands of the IRA,
remarked: "Protestants are supporting me very well, but the fact is
that 70% of my trade is with Roman Catholic people; we've got to wean
Roman Catholics back from Sinn Fein." The other victim responded by
saying: "The Roman Catholics know exactly what they are doing; this is
a softening-up process to weaken Protestant communities while the IRA
recruit and rearm for the next onslaught - the Roman Catholics are not
going to come back, you know! Those who believe different are under a
great delusion."
One cause of extreme sadness among many ordinary Protestants arises
from the failure of their own ministers of religion to speak up on
their behalf. Of course, there are exceptions, but in general
Protestant ministers keep a low profile, or actually distort reality.
These Protestant ministers attempt to prop up the myth of good
community relations in a region of western Europe which is deeply
polarised and close to further serious violence as embattled
Protestants continue to lose ground to an aggressive Pan-Nationalist
Front.
Another victim of boycotting explained why Protestant clergymen, even
those thought to be evangelical, say so little about the day to day
religious persecution of their own people. "These ministers know that
if they speak out, they are not going to get on well in the future.
For many Protestant ministers, theirs is no longer a vocation, it's
just a job - there's too much personal risk in rocking the ecumenical
boat, even for so-called evangelicals." This frustrated Protestant,
whose small business lost £4,000 in the first month, spoke of
Protestant school children spat upon by Roman Catholics on their way
to and from school near Bellaghy, of Protestants moving out, and of
these boycotts being organised in rural Roman Catholic parochial
halls, the locality of which he went on to identify. This victim spoke
of a Sinn Fein leaflet which had circulated in the Armagh area, which
specifically named Protestant premises which were to be boycotted.
Then in confirmation of all that had gone before, the victim produced
a sinister hand-bill which had been circulated to both the few
Protestants and the very many Roman Catholics in the town of
Coalisland. The leaflet carried no signature and claimed that thirty
Orangemen and a small band consisting of some elderly musicians and
young children had "intimidated" the people of Coalisland, 97.5% of
whom are Roman Catholics.
This specious document, full of half-truths and innuendo, bore all the
characteristics of Sinn Fein, and set the scene for the vicious
intimidation of Protestants and Orangemen, which took place on the
Twelfth of July. After the police were forced to intervene to rescue
the Protestants, and the local Church of Ireland minister was
bombarded with abuse and humiliated in the street in broad daylight by
a republican mob, Rev. Tomey said, "Today Coalisland has ceased to
exist for the Protestant people!" It was a telling remark.
Another eyewitness described the gutted ruins of the Church of Ireland
Christ Church in Londonderry. The eyewitness said that the burned out
shell of the church had such slogans daubed upon it as "boycott" and
"get out of Derry". Needless to say, the local Church of Ireland
minister, maintaining the lie of good community relations in Ulster,
asserted that the attack on the Protestant church was not sectarian!
Yet another message on the smouldering ruins of his church was stark:
"Prods out."
One anonymous writer to the letters columns of the Belfast Telegraph
had asked, “Following attacks on Protestant homes, churches, halls and
businesses, not to mention the organised campaign against Protestant
shops and parades, I would like to ask Irish nationalists where do
Protestants and loyalists fit in the new Ireland?”
The laughable peace process was meant to bring new enlightened
thinking from all sides, but the Catholic Nationalist community has
turned up the sectarian heat.
