Conflict and Consensus: A Study of Values and Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

March 23, 2005

News

23/03/2005

 

Conflict and Consensus: A Study of Values and Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

By Tony Fahey, Bernadette C. Hayes and Richard Sinnott.

Published by the Institute of Public Administration, Dublin



A major new comparative study of attitudes and values among Catholics and Protestants in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, to be published 23 March, reveals that:

 

 

  • Religion is still a source of deep division in identity and constitutional prefer-ences on the island of Ireland. But it is also a source of cultural similarity. Catholics and Protestants in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are closer to each other in their thinking on many issues than either is to any other population in Europe, including that of Britain.
  • Polarisation on questions of identity and constitutional preference between the Catholic-nationalist and Protestant-unionist traditions in Northern Ireland has not signif-icantly reduced since the Good Friday Agreement, nor has increased secularisation weakened the role of religion as a marker of identity in Northern Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, in contrast, both Catholics and Protestants align themselves with an Irish identity, and Protestants now stand apart from the unionist tradition.
  • In Northern Ireland, there are significant minorities on both sides of the Protestant-Catholic divide who are detached from the dominant identities and assert middle-ground identities such as ‘Northern Irish’ or ‘neither British nor Irish’. However, these middle-ground identities do not evoke strong positive feeling, and cross-over identities are rare. Virtually no Catholics in Northern Ireland identify themselves as unionist and virtually no Protestants identify themselves as nationalist.
  • Compared with other populations in Europe, Protestants and Catholics, both in the Republic and Northern Ireland, are quite similar in the importance they accord to religion.
  • They are also quite alike on questions of family and sexual morality where religion traditionally has had an influence.
  • On a number of issues the divide is between the religiously committed and those whose faith has weakened or disappeared. Secularisation has replaced denomination as the main axis of differentiation in regard to certain values and attitudes.
  • In comparison to much of the rest of Europe, the populations on both sides of the border are quite positive about general aspects of the political system This is so in spite of the political problems of Northern Ireland and the spate of allegations about corruption in public life in the Republic. It is particularly so in the Republic, where attitudes towards several aspects of the political system could be considered almost enthusiastic by European standards. Attitudes to the political system in Northern Ireland are about average for Europe.
  • While Catholics in Northern Ireland are less confident in the security forces than are Northern Protestants, they have quite high levels of confidence in many other public institutions in Northern Ireland, and they rate the UK system of government quite highly.
  • The populations on both sides of the border enjoy high levels of socio-economic welfare, individual life satisfaction and social capital. Both societies have levels of confidence in political institutions that in the circumstances could be regarded as surprisingly high. The grounds for consensus across a range of issues are almost as extensive as the grounds for conflict. In short, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future course of conflict and consensus on the island of Ireland.
  • The study is based on a wide range of survey data covering the period from the 1970s to 2003 but focusing especially on the European Values Study (EVS) as fielded in Ireland, North and South, in 1999-2000. The sample for the Republic of Ireland in the 1999-2000 EVS included a booster sample of Protestants so that Catholic-Protestant comparisons could be made on both sides of the border.