Irish Catholics and Protestants and some kind of madness.

[The Magic Pudding]

Just two generations ago, before the term multiculturalism became the norm, Australian society was polarised between two main groups: Protestants and Catholics. Religion was code for identity, with tensions fuelled by historical grievances that dated back long before the First Fleet. 'Catholic' meant Irish, and to an English Protestant Establishment, that meant trouble.

Until the 1960s, job vacancy advertisements might include the stipulation that 'Catholics Need Not Apply'.  Irish Catholics were an underclass -- Australia's first ethnic minority. When a Catholic married a Protestant (one in five marriages until the 1960s were 'mixed'), conflict and family fatwas often ensued.  Catholics are no longer the underdogs in Australia, but bigotry and prejudice remain, directed against a new 'other'.

In Part Two - 'Between Two Worlds', children who grew up in a mixed marriage recall a hybrid world of divided loyalties.

An (text article) interview with creator of the work.

MP3 1
MP3 2

I hope this being about Australia doesn't put anyone off, the article isn't overly long, the MP3 files would take a while to listen to.  I don't mean to start a conversation about Australia, more the catholic protestant rivalry where ever it happens.  It does strike me as a bizarre thing, I am the product of a Catholic/Protestant union.  I once said to my mother she had Irish parents, she denied it, they were catholic her father had a Mc name, her mother was a Shanahan, I suppose it wasn't fashionable to embrace an Irish heritage back then.  I was sent to a C of E church.

Some people put the better relations now down to mixed marriages, others say we have new people to hate.  It's a probably a bit of both and we must have learnt a bit as well, some of us anyway.

[DeterminedJuliet]

Newfoundland only stopped having segregated public schools (Catholics in one school, "everyone else" in another school) in 1998. 

Zany ol' stuff.

[palebluedot]

Hatred between these two cults is alive and well in Northern Ireland.

There are pitched battles going on as we speak.

In Britain, however, we have our heads up our arses so much that we cant see it for what it is.  The news reporters refer to "Loyalists" and "Nationalists" to mean Protestants and Catholics respectively.

Damn that Abraham!!!