Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground

Product Information

This new title will be accompanied by a new edition of 'Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People' which has already sold over 10,000 copies.

Every year we publish a selection of books and pamphlets that address the key issues facing activists and trade unionists. That may ultimately prove untenable given the rapidly shifting demographics but, for now, it represents the kind of paradigm shift in political thinking that is needed for real progress to be made. Against the backdrop of social justice movements, Brexit, the centenary of the foundation of the Northern Ireland state, and the prospect of a poll on Irish Unity, McKay interviews a wide range of people from all over Northern Ireland.There has been little peace dividend in the working class estates or the deep rural interior of Ulster. The is a truly enlightening and thought provoking read that opens a new perspective on the shifting identity of the Northern Irish protestant community.

Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters View image in fullscreen A Union flag is held aloft in Sandy Row, Belfast, during Twelfth of July celebrations in 2017. It is a potentially transformative narrative for anyone who takes the time to read it and reflect on the many experiences, commentaries and stories of the contributors. It displays a very rare honesty in revelling the truths of modern protestant unionist loyalist identity.Once again, her subjects are ordinary Protestants who, as McKay puts it, “are outside the unionist mainstream” and often feel “excluded and unrepresented”. The pain of people who lost loved ones during the troubles is still understandably raw in many cases, compounded by the governments recent pronouncements on how they are treating the legacy of the troubles. People (mainly Protestants) experience explosive events where they believe life will never be the same.