We continue after a short hiatus with some of the reports from the ground on Unionism. We met a small group just outside the town of Portadown.
Slugger spent an evening talking to a small group of Unionists in Portadown – a town with a poor reputation for community relations but one also bursting with an entrepreneurial energy of the type likely to bring high growth companies like Galen Pharmaceuticals which will probably help to reflate a weak private sector economy.
The town has a huge rural hinterland, much of it to the west of the River Bann. There was some concern about the population shift towards smaller families affecting communities (Catholic and Protestant) there, with school rolls falling dramatically in the last 10 or 15 years. These rural areas suffer disproportionately from the effective brain drain. With the greening of the home University populations in Queens and the University of Ulster, young protestants students are choosing to go to Scotland or England, with a high proportion choosing not to come back.
However this group believes that young Protestants should be encouraged to choose to stay in the provinces and look to take up leadership roles in their own local communities. One Orangeman told Slugger that when his daughter announced that she was thinking about applying for a university place in Dublin, his response was, ��as long as you don�t leave Ireland I am happy wherever you go.�
Narrowing profit margins in agriculture means a changing role for farmers. Many Protestants feel they have a bit of a reputation for being a bit dour, and therefore the possibility of creating a viable income through tourism may be problematic. One summed up what he saw as the key problem �As Unionists and Protestants we are not very good at selling ourselves. We need to give people the confidence to give it a go, and create a situation where failing need not be a problem.� Another added, �when we were brought up there was a sense of don�t ask for praise just do the thing and hide your light, whereas that doesn�t work in the modern world.�
There is also the question of security. Because of the relatively small size of Ulster farms, many diversification requirements, under the Leader scheme, will require small farmers to work together with neighbours. If that means there is a danger of compromising your security, its just not going to happen. A sea change in the political climate is the only thing that will make it happen. Once the possibility of physical coercion is removed, then there will be a much more consistent engagement with people on the other side. There has been a feeling here that even before the beginning of the troubles the problem of engaging too closely with the Catholic community was that it was so tightly and centrally controlled you ran the danger of losing one’s liberalism.
There was some optimism that the underlying conditions for cross community co-operation might already be in place. We were told that at market times, it is not uncommon to see farmers talking together whose political allegiance is as far removed as DUP and Sinn Fein, especially around the border. There is also a sense in which Protestant families who had given up living in border areas are coming back to the land their parents left 20 or 30 years ago. �They feel the schools are good, the churches are good and the life is better than some other places in Northern Ireland�. Amongst this group, religion remains a key social strength. The religious nature of US society is seen as a good example of how the state can pull to one side and let people get on with their own thing.
Although there remains a mild suspicion of collective community action, things are changing. The late Harold McCusker MP is remembered fondly as one of the early advocates of Credit Unions against a certain resistance, largely due to its local association with the Catholic Church. Nowadays the Orange Order is playing a leading role with similar initiatives.
Politically there was a sense in which current events should be allowed to work their way through. In the meantime apathy was the major concern. One person thought the Unionist constituency expected too much from leaders and there was less inclination to engage with civic processes themselves. However this group felt the need for a re-engagement with Unionist communities on the ground, and to give people the confidence to engage both competitively and co-operatively with Nationalists. As one person noted towards the end, �the next generation of Shinners will not have had anything to do with the armed struggle�.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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