Tuesday 6 October 2009

Protestant brain drain … again!

It has become almost an annual ritual that some unionist politician or other complains about the fact that Protestant students are more likely to study in Britain than in Northern Ireland, and thus are less likely to end up living here.

This year's contribution to the ritual comes from DUP MLAs Alex Easton and Jonathan Craig, who have tabled the following Private Members motion in the Assembly today:

"Motion - Protestant Student Exodus

Proposed: That this Assembly calls on the Minister for Employment and Learning to bring forward measures to attract, and ensure that, students from a Protestant background are encouraged to opt for universities in Northern Ireland as their first choice, rather than universities in the rest of the United Kingdom."


This motion displays in glorious brevity four obvious facts:
  • The DUP is unreservedly sectarian. Why otherwise would their motion talk about 'Protestant' students, rather than Northern Irish students? Their concern is not a brain drain per se, but a specifically Protestant brain drain.
  • The DUP does not see Northern Ireland as a fully integral part of the UK. If it didn't then it would have no issue about where in the UK students might study.
  • The DUP recognises that the drain of Protestants (whom the DUP evidently considers to be unionists) to British universities means that they are less likely to return to Northern Ireland, and that this poses dangers for the current very slim unionist majority.
  • The DUP considers Catholics – as Catholics – to be a danger to Northern Ireland's continuing membership of the UK. In other words, it continues to regard them as inherently 'disloyal', and believes that the achievement of a Catholic majority in Northern Ireland would spell the end of the road for Northern Ireland's participation in 'the union'.
This blog, of course, has recognised this danger to unionism for quite a time now, and it is gratifying to see that the DUP, like the UUP in previous years, is willing to openly admit the danger that it poses to the unionist Project Ulster. Of course, the Minister – the UUP's Reg Empey – will not give the overtly sectarian nature of the DUP's motion any encouragement (equality legislation, at the very least, will ensure that), and the truth is that nothing can stop students studying where they want. The canard about Northern Irish universities being 'cold houses' for unionist-minded students was robustly denied by the Students Union at Queens, and by the administrations of both Queens and University of Ulster.

Perhaps if Messrs Easton and Craig (and their party) spent more time and effort on making Northern Ireland a more pleasant place for everyone, then more students – of all religious persuasions and none – might want to stay. But they won't, so the students will keep on leaving, and with them unionism's best hopes for the future.

Update:

In the end the Easton/Craig motion did not get debated. Neither of the proposers was in the Assembly chamber to propose it (though one of them at least tried to be there), so we will never know who was, or was not, in favour of such sectarian nonsense.

Oddly, the Speaker - DUP man William Hay - appeared not to even know who his DUP colleague Alex Easton was. He referred to him as "Mr Eastwood".

32 comments:

Watcher said...

"Perhaps if Messrs Easton and Craig (and their party) spent more time and effort on making Northern Ireland a more pleasant place for everyone, then more students – of all religious persuasions and none – might want to stay. But they won't, so the students will keep on leaving, and with them unionism's best hopes for the future."

If Northern Ireland is such an unpleasant place, why don't more Nationalists leave? In fact why didn't more of them leave during The Stormount years? Some of them could have moved a few hundred yards across the border to 'freedom', but for some reason chose, yes CHOSE, to stay under UK rule, as do today's 'bold' Republicans. Comical or what?

bangordub said...

Horseman,
I Suggest you Check out todays Newsletter, page 9, giving a breakdown of the actual numbers from both communities in both Queens and UU,very interesting!
Cheers

Anonymous said...

It's called principle Watcher. At the end of the day it would have been easier for Nationalists to leave during Unionist misrule but Nationalist were prepared to stand up for themselves rather than take the easy option.

Watcher said...

Giggle...

Dazzler said...

Fom the Belfast Telegraph:

The School Census data for 2007-08 showed 40% of Year 13-14 school pupils were Protestant and 60% Catholic.”

Have you ever done a blog on schools and universities demographics horseman?

Dazzler said...

From the Newsletter:

In its current term, the University of Ulster, across its four campuses, confirmed it had 11,099 students registered as Roman Catholic. This was in comparison to 6,378 Protestant students.

A spokesperson for Queen's University said: "UCAS, the national application system, does not collect information on the religious background of students but, in 2008-09, of those who declared a religious affiliation, 43.9 per cent of full time undergraduate students at Queen's identified themselves as Protestant, 56.1 per cent identified themselves as Catholic."

Dazzler said...

So, 56.1& of 17/18 year olds in college in the north are catholic.

60% of 13/14 year olds attending school are catholic and as more protestants go to england or scotland to study, in 4 years time the amount of catholics entering college (ie when 13/14 year olds become 17/18)will be 60%+

When are we expecting a nationalist majority again horseman? Must surely be before 2020 with figures like that.

Horseman said...

Dazzler,

Have you ever done a blog on schools and universities demographics horseman?

Yes, certainly for the schools, because the schools census is published every year around the end the end of March. Try here:

http://ulstersdoomed.blogspot.com/2009/02/schools-census-2008-2009.html

http://ulstersdoomed.blogspot.com/2008/03/laughter-of-our-children.html

The universities don't usually publish the religions of their students (and usually don't even ask them, I expect), so the recent reports are interesting, though not surprising.

Watcher said...

With figures like that, a Protestant Civil Rights movement must be on it's way. Let's hope it doesn't turn ugly...

Anonymous said...

Horseman,

They were interesting stats. It appears from the stats in the BT that year 13-14(17-18year olds)60percent were Catholics. This would seem to suggest that they publish data on the various years as well as the whole figure in the school census that you cover.Do you know anything about this?

The UU figures were of the student body as a whole and came out 63percent catholic to 36 percent Protestant. It seemed they got most students to assign themselves. With the Queens figures it comes out 56 percent to 44 percent. Do you or anybody else on the blog know if these figures cover the whole of Queens student body like the UU figures?

Regards,
Jim,

Anonymous said...

lol at prodestant civilrights movement. Biggest pile of wank Ive ever heard

Anonymous said...

Protestant civil rights movement?

When the Catholics

start discriminating against disloyal subjects?

create a partisan police force?

chain the swings in parks on Sundays?

I don't expect any of this.

Anonymous said...

Some Catholics did leave. Some will return too! :-)

H3 said...

Watcher i believe the answer is that during the Stormont times Catholics did from the North did leave, all over the world you find loads of NI Catholics, that is why even with the considerably higher birth rate that populations did not converge earlier, it is only since civil rights and Oz and US getting harder to get into that this has stopped.

H3

Pedro said...

H3,
The irony of course is that a higher birth rate largely goes hand in hand with lower socioeconomic status and had there been no discrimination the respective birth rates would have converged early on. If you are reading this watcher google on the word 'nemesis'.

Horseman said...

Jim,

Normally the schools census only gives the figures for 'primary' or 'secondary' without any details on the different ages within those groups, but I suppose that the Department of Education have raw data by individual years, and maybe this is what the BT had access to.

Regarding the universities, I have no idea how they would know what religion (if any) their students are from. Given the suspicious coincidence of C+P=100% in both cases, I imagine their stats are wrong - they are probably giving the breakdown of only C and P respondents in a limited survey. Thus non-christians, atheists, and the 'couldn't give a damn' are not included.

MaleStripper said...

H3 said:

"The irony of course is that a higher birth rate largely goes hand in hand with lower socioeconomic status"

Indeed it does. Catholics should have sheafed up earlier and raised their living standards instead of winging about discrimination whilst licking the priest's boots.

At last a voice of reason...

Anonymous said...

Horseman,

It could be that the BT has a source or it could be a typo if you add the Queens and UU figures together it comes out 60 percent Catholic and 40 percent Protestant. If you have the time Horseman could you put up the percentage of Protestants/Catholics in Primary and secondary schools for the 2008-2009 census as you did in the 2007-2008 census. Also could you put up the raw Protestant figure for 2008-2009 i.e not including the other christian.

From Boss Hogg on Slugger these are the raw figures for 2007/2008
Queens-Protestant:6375 Catholic:8245 Other:1105 N/known:3540.
UU Magee-Protestant:530 Catholic:2090 Other:15 N/Known295
UU Belfast-Protestant:450 Catholic:545 Other:25 N/Known:100
UU Coleraine-Protestant:2110 Catholic:1760 Other:60 N/Known:315
UU Jordanstown-Protestant:3865 Catholic:6105 Other:105 N/Known: 2010.

From looking at the raw figures it appears as if more people assigned themselves at UU.

Thanks again for all your hard work,
Jim.

Horseman said...

Jim,

One of the link above was to the blog on the 2008-2009 Schools Census:

Schools Census 2008-2009

In the blog you'll find links to the source data.

I saw Boss Hogg's post on Slugger, but I have no idea where he/she got the figures. Unfortunately he/she gave neither a source nor link. I remain sceptical about whether the universities actually have this data, or if they do whether it is reliable (I imagine a lot of students would not answer, or give false answers).

Anonymous said...

Is there any data on emigration during the Stormont years according to religion/'community backround', job discrimination may not have been just about bigotry but a subtle form of ethnic cleansing if a disproportionate number of nationalists were forced out of the country.

Anonymous said...

Horseman,

Thanks for the link to the school census.

Pedro said...

Could someone point out the Slugger thread where Boss Hogg's comments appear?

hoboroad said...

The MLA's who didn't make there own private members motion. It is comment number 20.

Anonymous said...

Indeed, ethnic cleaning can be subtle. The subtlest of all is when the ethnic simply votes with his feet for greener pastures.

My Catholic grandparents moved south when the Free State was created, to escape discrimination. This was very fortunate for me and less so for Horseman. They had a very large family.

Horseman said...

Anonymous,

Re: "This was very fortunate for me and less so for Horseman" - don't worry about me, my family are Protestant (though I personally have no religion at all), and they were and are scattered both north and south. I must say too (in relation to the small controversy currently being stoked up over the Cork Protestants in 1920), my southern Protestant family never experienced either a word or a deed of discrimination, and most of them are affluent businesspeople or farmers, totally integrated into their communities and country. If only the northern unionists would look at the reality rather than their mythology we might make ome progress!

Watcher said...

Anonymous said:

"Indeed, ethnic cleaning can be subtle. The subtlest of all is when the ethnic simply votes with his feet for greener pastures.

My Catholic grandparents moved south when the Free State was created, to escape discrimination. This was very fortunate for me and less so for Horseman. They had a very large family."

Glad you brought this up (although very surprised). The proportion of Protestants in The South has fallen from 10% at independence to 2% now. The proportion of Catholics in Northern Ireland has risen from 33% at partition to at least 45% now. I wonder which culture really practiced the most discrimination? Why did so many Protestants leave The South and so few Catholics leave The North?

Watcher said...

Horseshit said:

"Re: "This was very fortunate for me and less so for Horseman" - don't worry about me, my family are Protestant (though I personally have no religion at all), and they were and are scattered both north and south. I must say too (in relation to the small controversy currently being stoked up over the Cork Protestants in 1920), my southern Protestant family never experienced either a word or a deed of discrimination, and most of them are affluent businesspeople or farmers, totally integrated into their communities and country. If only the northern unionists would look at the reality rather than their mythology we might make ome progress!"

Then perhaps you can explain why The Protestant population of The Republic fell from 10% at partition to 2% now, whilst The Catholic population of Northern Ireland rose so dramatically during the same time period.

Horseman said...

Watcher/Andrew McCnn,

You'll find that I've already looked at that issue, in the blog:

Monaghan 1861-1911

Have a read and see if you still have questions.

Watcher said...

Yes, as I say, HORSESHIT. The figures speak for themselves. Massive hemorrhaging of Protestants out of The Irish cess pit, whilst Catholics bred like rats and stayed in 'da north' - the 'sectarian' state. You see, the problem with the bog Irish is they think that by telling a lie often enough, it might be believed. Unfortunately, outside the world of the 'friendly Irish priest (so good with da young lads)', this is quite simply not the case...

AND WHO THE HELL IS ANDREW MCCNN?

Paddy Canuck said...

Watcher said...

"If Northern Ireland is such an unpleasant place, why don't more Nationalists leave?"

Because from the sounds of it, it's getting more and more pleasant for nationalists all the time... :)

Paddy Canuck said...

Watcher said...

"In fact why didn't more of them leave during The Stormount years? Some of them could have moved a few hundred yards across the border to 'freedom'"

If unionists are so intent on being "British", why don't more of them move to Britain, a few dozen miles across the Irish Sea? Oh, wait... I guess they HAVE been, haven't they? Never mind. :D

Paddy Canuck said...

"Then perhaps you can explain why The Protestant population of The Republic fell from 10% at partition to 2% now"

Easy; the same way both my Protestant grandfathers did... they married women who were Catholics. Not surprising in areas where the vast majority of the colleens are Catholic, hmm? I'm technically Catholic (by baptism) but if I were going to be seriously devout as a Christian, my views are best reflected by either the Anglican Church of Canada or the United Church of Canada (Presbyterian/Methodist/Baptist), so I'm sort of Protestant by inclination. As an Irish citizen, I feel that Ireland is, really, one country, and should be reunited, albeit as a federal state in which Ulster has its own legislature. My two cents. Or tuppence.