Background to the Research

• The GFA of 1998 has brought about major structural and cultural changes in NI. The article explores the implications of the Agreement for national and religious identification amongst Protestants in NI.
  

Research Approach

• Long episodic interviews were carried out with 16 Protestants living in NI, employing a mixture of narrative and semi-structured forms of interviews. The broad categories of church going, age, socio-economic class and geographical region were evenly represented.
  

Main Findings

Protestant Pluralism

• Several respondents in the study articulated a degree of acceptance of the new political norms of inclusion, pluralism and multi-culturalism.
• Those who articulated pluralism tended to have had experiences of living/working outside NI and held a positive view of their own personal situation.

Protestants Privatising

• Several respondents appeared to evaluate politics after the GFA as it related to their private lives. Commonly in this political privatisation, there is a persistence of British identity alongside the idea that Britain does not really care about unionists.
• Alongside this, Protestantism too has been transformed into a private religious identity for many.

Protestants purifying

• Several respondents described a sense of political alienation from the mainstream. Within this, the GFA is seen to confirm a downward spiral of exclusion from the centre of power accompanied by a perception of increased power in the hands of the Catholic community, a sense of righteousness and an opposition to political change.

Conclusion

• Protestant identification is highly responsive to political change. Internal struggles within unionism to define Britishness and Protestantism are taking place within the context of a new political process, the changing nature of Britain and Ireland, global change, and with an eye to international approval.
• Within the current climate, the evolving meanings of Britishness and Protestant identifications are widely variable. This may challenge the idea that there is a homogenous Protestant identity.
• The reconstructions of identity outlined in this study are dependent on the direction that future political change takes.