Skip to main content

Catholic Protestant Relationships in Ireland

Catholic-Protestant Relationships in Ireland, North and South: A Study of Three ‘Frontier’ Communities

Higher Education Authority in the Republic of Ireland and funded through the European Union Programme for Peace and Reconciliation

Professor Hastings Donnan

This project sought to address the imbalance in the research literature available on Protestant-Catholic relationships North and South of the border as well as the relative absence of comparative research.

This project carried out comparative research on Protestant-Catholic relationships in both parts of Ireland since partition.  It focused on relationships in those parts of Ireland where Protestants have been historically an outlying and vulnerable minority. These settings were conceptualised as ‘frontier’ in nature and as such were seen as particularly valuable points at which to explore wider relationships.

The research compared relationships in three local areas: south Armagh, north Monaghan and west Cork. Each of these has seen serious violence: in west Cork and north Monaghan during the period before independence; in south Armagh in the very recent period  Data were collected through archival research, collection of life histories and contemporary survey and ethnographic research.