Saturday 24 April 2010

Et tu, Fionnuala?

In Fionnuala O’Connor’s Constituency Profile on South Belfast in today’s Irish Times:

“The last census showed South Belfast still had a unionist majority …”

Focal sa chluais, a Fhionnuala – the census does not measure political persuasion. In fact there are no ‘political’ questions whatsoever in it. What it measured was religious persuasion. What you wished to say, no doubt, was that the census showed that South Belfast had a Protestant majority (around 52%). In polite company it is normal to pretend that there is no direct correlation between religion and politics – but privately many people know there is.

And clearly so does Fionnuala O’Connor and the Irish Times.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The south doesn't have to mince it's words over NI, until reunification is actually on the horizon the north is as irrelevant to the Republic as it is to the UK, Europe and indeed the planet earth.