DAVE MANS5LL mounted by some anti-Unionist groups, the vast majority of whose followers were probably professing Catholics. The overall pattern revealed in the 1961 and 1971 figures was much the same (2): a Protestant bloc (composed of Presbyterians, members of the Church of Ireland, Methodists and other smaller sects) comprising about 65% of the population, and a Roman Catholic bloc comprising about 35%. In the Republic of Ireland, the position is reversed: out of a population of 3,000,000 95% of the people adhere to the Roman Catholic Church and 5% are Protestants. Church attendance amongst Ulster Catholics is extremely high (almost 90%) and is only bettered amongst « Western » nations by that of the Southern Irish ( the Republic is considered to be «priest-ridden» by the Northern Protestants). Amongst the Protestants the attendance rate is probably four to six times the rate for their coreligionists in England. All this adds up to the fact that religion plays a very important role in the public life of Northern Ireland. But what does this mean? The fiighting over the past eight years, which has resulted in over 1800 deaths, has not been over doctrinal differences. The Provisional I.R.A. don't shoot British soldiers, the Ulster Workers' Council didn't bring down a British-appointed government in one of the most successful general strikes this century, because of a dispute about transubstantiation. Unlike in England, where membership of one or another Christian sect has become primarily a matter of private conscience which has little effect on economic or political life, to be a Protestant or a Catholic in Northern Ireland in the last fiftyfive years has had a great effect on the possibilities of getting decent housing and a job and, increasingly in the last few years which have been marked by an upsurge in sectarian murder, can have meant the difference between life and death. Although the economic development of Ireland as a whole over the last 350 years since the massive intervention of 50 (2) Main religious denominations in Northern Ireland: Roman Catholic Presbyterian Church of Ireland Methodist Others No response Total 1961 1971 497,547 477,919 413,113 405,719 344,800 334,318 71,865 71,235 69,299 87,938 28,418 142,511 1,425,042 1,519,640
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