Harry's Place

Loathe as I am to defend officialdom, there’s plenty of people in NI who would discriminate against you (or indeed run you down) because of your perceived religion.

Just as with race, it would be great if we didn’t have to worry about this things.

Of course, as the late Cardinal Tomas O Fiach once said: “It’s all the fault of themmuns.”

(Actually he said 90% of sectarianism was the fault of Protestants. Cue a bout of sectarian squibbling as people tried to work out how far the blame should be apportioned).

I knew somebody at university who was indeed a protestant jew, having attended Methody.

Actually I can nkow of certain Protestant Catholics and Catholic Protestants (their tribal background vs their political/relgious views).

If the Irish government ever asks me for my religion (I’m not sure they bother because all the Prods fecked off years ago so there’s no discrimination, like) I intend to describe myself as Protestant-Catholic-Protestant.

The CofE was intended to avoid all this kind of nonsense, you know. It didn’t quite work in Ireland.

As you should be aware the NI state was founded on religious bigotry and institutionalised sectarianism.

The catholic population was systematically excluded from well paid jobs and kept as second class citizens (with the full knowledge and approval of the British government) from 1921 until they rose up in the late 60’s to demand equal rights.

Now you can make all the smug middle class comments you like about religion not mattering, however for nationalist community in NI religious bigotry against them is a real issue, and monitoring employment practices to ensure they get fair treatment is a vital demand.

But sorry I forgot, bigotry and discrimination against Catholics is not on your agenda is it, after all it is not even anti-semitism.

“As you should be aware the NI state was founded on religious bigotry and institutionalised sectarianism.”

Really? my my, we are lucky to have such scholars here to state the BLEEDING OBVIOUS

What next? Are we to be told that water is wet? Or perhaps that beaches are made of sand ?

Oh look at who is getting all upset, got any substantial point to make re Northern Ireland or are you not able to as it does not involve Sue Blackwell?

Well said Modernity

I see Sonic is determined to keep his little backyard sectarian squabble going (just in case the middle-east finds peace.)

Hilariously silly!

Wow grassroots, now I am personally responsible for the situation in Northern Ireland, wow!

And as I said “But sorry I forgot, bigotry and discrimination against Catholics is not on your agenda is it, after all it is not even anti-semitism.”

Thanks for proving the point!

What about your beliefs as a revolutionary socialist makes you think the answer to the problems of Northern Ireland is the British state drawing up lists of people’s notional religious affiliation?

Ahem. I think you’ll find that one of us at least has written supportively and hopefully of Sinn Fein’s conduct at the NIPP.

Peter will remind you who that is.

Thats right sonic put em in little boxes labelled “Catholic” and “Protestant” We can all stay living in the 1950s when it was all so much easier!

As I said I see Sonic is determined to keep his little backyard sectarian squabble going (just in case the middle-east finds peace.)

Thanks for proving my point! Hilarious!

“Now you can make all the smug middle class comments you like about religion not mattering,”

says sonic, the authentic working class voice of the newly formed Catholics for Islam.

Preg, I dont agree with it as such, but I also do not agree with the mocking tone of the original post.

Religious discrimination in Northern Ireland is not dead, it did not go away in the 1950’s. All I was trying to point out was that if the discrimination was being done on an anti-semitic basis I doubt if modernity and his chums would be quite so flippant.

What is ‘middle class’ about criticising the state drawing up of religious affiliation lists?

I’ve nothing against middle class things, I just wonder how you have determined the ‘class character’ of this issue?

“As you should be aware the NI state was founded on religious bigotry and institutionalised sectarianism.”

In a word, bollocks. If anything, the ROI had even more. At least the leaders of NI weren’t a bunch of Nazi arselickers.

Morgoth the Ulsterman

Well wasn’t Jesus a kind of Jewish Christian? According to the Koran, though, he was Muslim – they all were, Moses, Mary the lot. Traditionally Muslims describe converts as ‘reverts’, on the grounds that everyone is one unless corrupted.

We had to fill in one of these daft diversity things at work. Under ‘religion’ offered a choice (amongst other things) between Christian, Church of England and Catholic, which is a bit odd. After listing a few mainstream religions it said ‘other’, so arguably it didn’t give an option for atheist.

For Morgorth.

Tiocfaidh Ár Lá.

sonic, I can’t imagine yours ever will!

Sonic sounds like he’s been reading the Turner Diaries again.

There used to be a nonsectarian party in Norn Iron: the NI Labour Party. It was very popular among the shipworkers of Belfast and a thorn in the side of the Unionist boss class. It was closed down by the mainland Labour Party and its members told they could join the SDLP, an outfit committed to driving Ulster into the priest-ridden Republic. There would no longer be official British Labour candidates in the province. Some NILP members joined the socialist Ian Paisley’s fledgling DUP instead, giving it the proletarian tinge which it has retained while displacing the Unionists as Norn Iron’s leading political group.

Yea right “Bernadette” Sinn fein are Fascists as well now?

Jack would that be the NILP that was led by the highly appropriately named Billy Boyd?

Although it seems odd to try and list people’s “percieved religion” I can see why it is done. If it is suspected there is discrimination against a religious/ethnic community, ethnic monitoring is one way to investigate it. For example, if 50% of workers in a firm are Catholic and only 10% of managers are then _this is not ipso facto proof of discrimination but it suggests there might be an issue_. Without ethnic monitoring, it would be possible for a discriminatory employer to say “ah, we don’t have that many Catholic workers anyway so that’s why we don’t have many Catholic managers”.

I wouldn’t necessarily call it “middle-class” to object to ethnic/religious monitoring as sonic implies but it is an example of the ’smug liberals’ attitude to the world. Just because they see themselves as free of prejudice they want to do away with systems for trying to investigate or measure it – failing to realise that others _do_ discriminate on religious and racial grounds and that there has been a long history of this. To get rid of ethnic monitoring and state anti-discrimination legislation etc is giving a free pass to those who want to continue with discriminatory practices and customs.

This issue sort of ties in to the eternal debates on islam people on this site seem to have as well. Certain people who claim to be secular liberals assume that, because they themselves feel themselves to be non-racist, that their objections to Islam and calls for the “West” to take a hard line against it are totally benign. What they fail to realise is that racial and religious bigotry are an important component of anti-Islamic feeling throughout the world [as well as, of course, of anti-Jewish or anti-Hindu feeling]. They assume every opponent of what they see as some kind of monolithic political islamic movement is a nice secular liberal. In fact, many are quite unpleasant characters. The anti-islamic fervor of some claimed ’secularists’, ‘liberals’, ‘democrats’ and ‘feminists’ gives a free pass to anti-liberal, anti-feminist and anti-democratic forces of the far-right who also hate Muslims.

The slotting of the Northern communities into one of two ‘camps’ is undoubtedly depressing but is simply a reflection of the fact that “Northern Ireland” was established as a sectarian reserve for one “camp” who demonstrated a total inability to govern the place fairly. Unsurprisingly people now have to be tagged, labelled and jump through all manner of hoops in order for some equality to come through in employment.

There used to be a nonsectarian party in Norn Iron: the NI Labour Party.

There still is one: the Alliance Party. It isn’t Labour (or particularly ‘left’ in any way) but non-sectarian it nonetheless is.

GL gets all preachy in the way that only secular lefties can. Scare quote city.

‘The anti-islamic fervor of some claimed ’secularists’, ‘liberals’, ‘democrats’ and ‘feminists’ gives a free pass to anti-liberal, anti-feminist and anti-democratic forces of the far-right who also hate Muslims.’

Or anti-liberal, anti-feminist and anti democratic forces of the far-right who also ARE muslims.

But I’m saying nothing.

Actually I can see the benefit of ethnic and religious monitoring to ensure fairness in the workplace – it’s just that it’s often done in a silly way. Fairness and politcal correctness are not the same thing.

OP, glad to hear you see merit in ethnic monitoring. Am not sure why you consider me “preachy”, though. I would say that “preaching” is from those who want to wage some kind of a crusade against the “evil islamic infidel” and so have to preach about the alleged permanent inherent iniquity and evil of the islamic religion throughout the world [while ignoring other religions].

Where we differ, and i have mentioned this before, is that i see the way of tackling political Islam as a force is for leftists and socialists in Asia and the Middle East to organise and build a secular alternative. Just like we in Euope tackled the excesses of the Catholic Church and some national Protestant Churches, so the Muslim world can tackle political islamism.

Intemperate, excessive and inconsistant attacks on Muslism in the West, though, when coming from people from non-Muslim backgrounds, fit into the pattern of Christan anti-Islamic campaigns and racist campaigns against people from historically Muslim societies. To go on about Islam in the West [where it is a minority faith] as if it and all its believers are always and everywhere inherently more evil than Christianity [the majority faith] and ultra-nationalism [the curse of C-20 Europe] is giving a free past to every kind of racist, Islamophobe and bigot who hates Arabs and Asians.

The problems in NI aren’t to do with religion at all. The words “Protestant” or “Catholic” are markers or badges; nobody is fighting over their differing interpretations of the Bible.

‘To go on about Islam in the West [where it is a minority faith] as if it and all its believers are always and everywhere inherently more evil than Christianity [the majority faith] and ultra-nationalism [the curse of C-20 Europe] is giving a free past to every kind of racist, Islamophobe and bigot who hates Arabs and Asians.’

No it isn’t. In any case that’s not what I’ve been doing. I’ve nowhere said that all Muslims are inherently more evil than all Christians. I can’t have said this, unless flippantly, because I don’t think it.

You compare ‘all Muslims’ and Christianity’ which is comparing people to an abstraction, showing, possibly a confusion in your own mind between ideologies and their adherents.

Whatever you think of a religion, to discriminate in employment, benefits, housing etc is wrong. I work with many Muslims and they would be astonished to hear my views on their religion.

nobody is fighting over their differing interpretations of the Bible

I’m sure that I’ve heard that Paisley fellow saying something about salvation by faith, rather than works, being the only way…

What geriatriclabour said (in a much better written and much better put way than I have ever managed)

OP, i do not recall you saying that ‘Muslims’ were OK but ‘Islam’ wasn’t. What in fact you have said [when people have criticised your position for being way too close to that of racists] is “Muslims aren’t a race, they are a religion” [which is correct, given that there are white, Arab, Asian and black Muslims] but misses the point that _in the west_ Muslims are disproportionate from racial minorities (and so there is an overlap between those that hate Muslism and those that hate Asians).

In fact, by insisting that Islam is a totalitatian belief system inherent on world domination [and that there is no alternative interpretation] that is a demonisation of Muslims. You are saying that because they are Muslims they want to presecute you, me & other non-believers. You are accusing them all of being murderers, totalitarians and bigots. It is thus as offensive as if I said that all Germans were really neo-Nazis under the skin and wanted to kill Slavs, Jews etc

Your distinction between religion & race simply shows that you don’t hate atheist or Christian Arabs and Asians. It does not show that you don’t have a hatred of Muslims.

But I don’t hate Muslims, I hate Islam and feel sorry for many Muslims who are its victims and angry towards some who are its perpetrators. Again you misunderstand my argument. Ideologies are freely chosen, so the race analogy is not appropriate. Some Muslims are hardly Islamic at all – good for them, nice. Some are very Islamic. Nasty.

Anyway, I don’t want to clutter up the thread, which is about diversity monitoring with a general re-hash of my previous arguments. On diversity monitoring I think we can agree, and I think this in itelf undermines your caricature of me as a bigot or closet racist.

Simon: The Alliance Party has suffered the fate of those who travel in the middle of the road. It’s roadkill. It might get up and stagger along some more if the expected dissolution of the UUP leads to its more ‘moderate’ members, such as Lady Hermon and Reg Empey, going into the Alderdices’ wee family party. But most of the AP’s voters are so-called ‘garden centre Prods’ in suburban Belfast, apathetic middle class characters. It’s not a serious contender. Neither is the NI Conservative Party, which was started in the teeth of opposition from mainland grandees such as Mrs Thatcher but has not made any impact outside Belfast and North Down.

The British parties have a disgraceful history of cutting the non-bigot mainstream majority of Norn Iron people, Prod and RC alike, adrift from normal politics and abandoning them to local agitators. So has the Republic: neither Fine Gael nor Fianna Fail have ever fought an election north of the Border. The truth is that the Irish Question had become such a pain in the arse that after Lloyd George ’solved’ it in the 1920s there was a tacit agreement at Westminster and Dublin to let Stormont alone.

Fortunately more recently there have been MPs such as Kate Hoey, Lembit Opik and Andrew Hunter who have spoken up for links with the mainland’s politics. Now the Republic has abandoned its territorial claim and the Shinners have failed to make the breakthrough they hoped for after being shown up as the suited gunmen they have always been, we may see a new left/right alignment. For instance, the DUP could split after the Doc retires. Some of his men are far more left-wing than the average NuLabber. Maybe the socialist revival will start in the home of James Connolly.

In a word, bollocks. If anything, the ROI had even more.

Note how the second sentence contradicts the first. Which is it? Was the Protestant State for a Protestant People not sectarian, or was it sectarian but the Irish Free State was even worse?

At least the leaders of NI weren’t a bunch of Nazi arselickers.

Morgoth the Ulsterman

(“At least…” – that’s another retreat from the NI is not a sectarian state line.) No, they were just bigots who inspired the pro-Nazi South African Nationalist Party.

And the link between loyalist paramilitaries and British neo-Nazis is loudly advertised.

Alex Higgins, croppie not lying down

OP, a number of points.

Firstly, although religion is freely-chosen, in practice the people who tend to freely choose religious affiliation are atheists and converts. Most people, by reflex, share the religion of their community. That’s why the analogy between a (nominal) follower of a religion and the holder of political and ideological views tends to break down.

Secondly, for someone who claims to “feel sorry” for Muslims i have never seen you post criticsing the likes of Peter/Terrance and other LGF-type people who are (a) borderline racist, (b) ignorant and (c) very anti-Muslim. You far prefer launching attacks against socialists and left-liberals than taking on the LGF-type bigots on this site. Thus, it is reasonable for readers of this blog to draw the conclusion that you agree with them

Thirdly, for someone who claims to want people within Islamic communities to move away from reactionary political islam, you hardly ever comment on this. Instead you post to support the Anglo-American military adventures in Iraq and to attack their opponents rather than to lay out suggestions for bottom-up transformations of religious societies by the ordinary people.

In your posts on other political matters, you seem to be generally right-wing [i haven't seen any criticism of the Tories in your posts]. What I think you fail to realise is that it is people who are generally right-wing in islamic societies who are doing a lot of the harm you bemoan.

Fifthly, the most secular islamic societies and communities tend to be those with a communist past (or strong leftist secular forces). If you are serious about moving people away from religious reaction, you should thus side with the left. You do not criticise the US and its allies despite the fact that lots of islamic reactionaries were backed by NATO in their time (esp in Afghanistan and in Turkey as a bulwark against ‘Marxists’). It thus strikes me that you share the historical blindness of the neo-cons and thus wish to be a cheerleader for American power rather than paying attn to what is best for the quality and standard of living of ordinary workers and farmers throughout the Muslim world.

Northern Ireland, at its creation, was designed to be a ’sectarian’ state [to have boundaries artificially created so it had a Protestant majority]. Unionist politicians frankly said so. I am amazed Morgoth tries to deny it.

The Rep of Ireland had its own sectarian nature as well. However, the degree of oppression and discrimination Protestants faced in the R o I was less than Catholics in the north. The real victims of R o I’s subservience to the Catholic hierachy were lapsed Catholics, agnostics and atheists – not the Protestant minority [who were disproportionately rich and well-educated].

GL

‘i have never seen you post criticsing the likes of Peter/Terrance and other LGF-type people who are (a) borderline racist, (b) ignorant and (c) very anti-Muslim. You far prefer launching attacks against socialists and left-liberals than taking on the LGF-type bigots on this site. Thus, it is reasonable for readers of this blog to draw the conclusion that you agree with them’

No it isn’t reasonable at all. There are many people posting on this site that I don’t argue with. I don’t think I’ve ever really argued with Benji, for example. Are you to conclude that I agree with him?

You’re determined to make me out to be a racist and a bigot. It just won’t work.

Have you ever seen any of my reactions to the repugnant views of Ant/Love Supreme? It/they are the real racists.

But have it your own way. Anyone who isn’t left wing is a Fascist.

OP, you assert that i am ‘determined’ to make you out to be a racist & bigot. I am simply pointing out your fixation with Islam and how it gives a free pass to racists & bigots. I am also pointing out that you seem far happier to attack the positions of people like myself, Stephen Marks, Alex H etc than the LGF crowd – suggesting, perhaps, that you have more in common with them than you care to admit. People can drawn their own conclusions from this.

You also assert that i claim “anyone who isn’t left-wing is a fascist”. What a load of nonsense! This is another one of your false assertion [just like your numerous false assertions about Islam and your numerous attempts to whitewash the crimes of non-islamic religous bigots].

Although i disagree with them, i have never accused free-marketeers and moderate conservatives of being fascist. I have also never accused you of being a fascist. Instead, i am pointing out how your views and your islam-fixation play straight into the hands of the racist fringe. If you don’t like that, too bad.

Now, will you engage with the other issues i raised in my post? Such as, what your view is of the anti-communist religious fanatics in teh 80s Afghan war? Or your views regarding the best politicial approach for us to take in _showing solidarity_ with people in the Muslim world suffering from the rule of their feudal/oligarhic elites? And your view regarding US, Uk & NATO support for reactionary Islamic forces throughout the world during the cold war

It is really silly to say that, because I don’t argue with some people, I agree with what they say. Or even that I disagree all the opinions of people I argue with. I don’t remember arguing with with Alex H, but I’ve argued with Alex F and both agreed and disagreed with him.

Have you ever argued with Themos? No? Well you obviously think the same as him.

Bear in mind, too, that it is people on the left who are most likely to challenge my arguments, while people further to the right will not. So what? You’re just trying to make me out to be something I’m not.

On your other points, just one word – realpolitik.

OP, I think you will find I have criticised some of the nonsense coming from “anti-Zionist” left-wing commentators who are soft on Arab nationalism [which, after all, is as reactionary as any other form of nationalism and has caused a lot of suffering for the Kurds etc]. I don’t see you displaying the same keenness to differntiate youself from the far-right islamophobes who from time-to-time flock to threads

To wrench this back to the topic, I’ve said I’m in favour of ethnic and religious monitoring in the workplace and against discrimination on any non-work-related grounds, including religion. I’m also against discrimination on religious grounds when it comes to law, medical care housing, benefits etc.

Perhaps you just don’t believe me, GL. Really you are accusing me of being a racist because I argue with left wing people more than right wing people.

Not a lot of right wing people post here anyway. But have it your own way, I’m just like Terrance, just like Hitler in fact.

YAWN! OP, you are still beating your straw man that i claimed you are a fascist.

The clear fact is: you are playing into the hands of fascists and they are laughing all the way to the ballot box. The more Islamophobia [divorced from any historical context] is tuned up to a hysterical pitch, the bigger the vote for the BNP, Front Nationale, Freedom Party etc

Re your comment about ‘realpolitik’ a while ago? Does that mean you back US/NATO support for the murderous mujahadeen in Afghanistan [a qn i keep trying to tease out a response from right-wingers about]. So, Muslim extremists were OK in 1985 but not in 2005?

‘you are playing into the hands of fascists and they are laughing all the way to the ballot box.’

Yeah right. Fascists are going to read that I support equality in the workplace and consider me an ally.

My position is very specific. Possibly right wingers misunderstand it, as do many left wingers. That’s not my fault.

Regarding your other points – communism was the greater evil at the time and had to be destroyed. Losing in Afganistan was a big blow to the Soviet union. Lesser of two evils. Now communism is a dead duck and Islam is a significant retroactive force in the world. If you are as progressive as you claim to be you might like to see people move beyond it. Wouldn’t you like to see the Iranians free from the yoke of the Mullahs?

OP, you say you support equality in the workplace. . Even the BNP nowadays don’t explicitly say they want anti-Asian or anti-black discrimination in the workplace.

But you only say that when we press you. The general tone of your contributions is a strongly anti-Muslim one.

You state ‘communism’ was the ‘greater evil’ and ‘had to be destroyed’. I fully agree that liberal democracy is a far better system than the Stalinist regimes of the old Eastern Bloc. However, i don’t think handing Afghanistan over to a bunch of theocrats was a good thing.

You are following the neo-con agenda by saying that, in 1985, somehow the secular left was an enemy and, in 2005, the Islamic fanatics are the main enemey. I don’t see any reason why that was the case.

It seems to me that you right-wingers were happy when the Islamic fanatics were murdering unveiled women, teachers and Afghan and Russian conscripts but, once Bin Laden and his ilk started attacking the US, suddenly you realised how sinister they were.

I would like to see the fall of the Iranian regime, which killed many progressives when it siezed power. However, we must not forget one of the reasons why the islamists were popular in the early days (1979-80) was because of public outrage at the conduct of the American-backed dictatorship of the Shah and the rising level of inequality and maldistribution of oil wealth in Iranian society.

‘OP, you say you support equality in the workplace. . Even the BNP nowadays don’t explicitly say they want anti-Asian or anti-black discrimination in the workplace.’
‘

Well thanks for that. You’ve made your opinion very clear, and I’m surprised you even care what I think about any other issues.

You seem to have gone off in a huff, OP. I was pointing out that mere words about not wanting to see discrimination are a bit weak. You can’t go around creating an athmosphere where people are unduly suspicious of their fellow Muslim collegaues etc by spreading a tale about the inherent wickedness of islam and then add, as a postscript, that they shouldn’t discriminate against them as a kind of afterthought.

Regarding my second point, I maintain my contention that the neo-con right has been inconsistent in its attitude to Islam. It was OK when unveiled women, teachers, schoolgirls and Afghan conscripts were being killed by religous fanatics. When the CIA-supplied fanatics like Bin Laden turned against the US, though, suddenly the right sees ‘Islam’ as some kind of monolithic evil force.

I don’t want to talk about this any more. You think I’m lying about my belief in workplace equality. So what’s to talk about? You won’t believe me anyway, because you think that really, underneath it all, I’m a racist.

Yes, the neo-Con right has been inconsistent in its attitude to Islam, when it was the lesser of the two evils. But I’m lying about that too. Really I just want to kill lots of Muslims in nasty ways.

OP, it is interesting how sometimes you are keen to post v frequently and then suddenly you “don’t want to talk” any more. Could it be that you, who are so keen to direct bile at the left and at Muslims, don’t like it when the same is done to you?

I said that your words on workplace equality were ‘weak’ and that rants about the inherently sinsiter nature of islam are a poor way to build a groundswell of support/approval for equal rights for Muslims and other religious minorities. I think any impartial observer (if there are any on these threads) would agree. You can’t say “X are sinister” in one breath and then say in the next “Don’t disciminate against X”. People, given the nature of human psychology, will only take the 1st msg on board & focus on that. This is why the far-right loves the increasing level of islamophobic discourse coming from those (like Pym Fortyn and Geet Wilders (sp?) in Holland) seen as ‘liberal’.

You certainly can say ‘Islam is sinister’ in one breath, and ‘Don’t discriminate against Muslims’ in the other. Not all Muslims suffer from Islam to the same extent, and many only know/follow the nice bits, if at all.

OK, you will never, ever understand my position or believe that this distinction is possible. So you think I don’t really mean it.

My criticism of Islam arises because it is illiberal. But you just don’t believe me. So there’s nothing to say.

You state, boldly, that I will “never understand” your position. What a load of nonsense!

I oppose most religious movements/leaders becase they are illiberal. However, unlike you i don’t focus on islam at the same time and using some of the same rhetoric that the far-right is focussing on it _while turning a blind eye_ to other religious reactionaries.

Whatever.

Given the magnificent propensity of the Norn Irish to turn every given topic into a discussion about themselves (remember how Mary McAleese’s comments on Holocaust memorial day turned into the usual sectarian blah?) there is a beautiful irony in the fact that one of the few HP discussions of the topic turned into a rerun of the usual Islam “good or bad” spat.

I suppose we can look at the forth green field in a whole new way now.

fourth green field.

To be fair, noone has compared the six counties with Israel yet…

The unionist entity?

Venichka, you have seen the Palestinian flags in the Falls, surely

Tiocfaidh Allah. (not sure if you need fadas in Arabic)

I guess I’m one of those Protestant Atheists but I know lots of Ulster Presbyterians who are offended when others lump them in with Church of Ireland so-called Protestants (their words not mine) in the South. They fully support the Robin Williams joke about the Episopalian Church being Catholic Lite.

Any Independent Ireland in the 1920’s was going to be a Nationalistic Catholic Ireland. I don’t blame my forefathers one bit for wanting to stay out of such a thing. It’s only recently that the Republic of Ireland has started to look like a place where anyone who isn’t a catholic would feel comfortable. Unfortunately after 80 years of bigotry and murder by the IRA the Tricolour and other trappings of the Irish Republic are all tainted.

My heart sank when I read the start of sonic’s post. I thought that it might be from a Harry’s Place commenter that I respected and would have to chastise for talking such a load of old bollocks.Fortunately, it was only the village idiot.

The Church of Ireland is Anglican, not Protestant. It is in the apostolic succession. Paisley’s Free Presbyterians are not.