Protestant working class boys are thickos

[Milltown Row2]

How is paraphrasing the main headline on the news everywhere yesterday, an example of bigotry?

For what it's worth, I take all such headlines with a pinch of salt as they usually all emanate from pressure groups trying to magnify problems out of all proportion in a bid  to acquire funding.

As a product of the lower working classes myself (as was my late brother who became a Doctor), we had no role models growing up, no academic history whatsoever in the family, and grew up in the midst of a practical civil war in an area where catholics had to keep a very low profile, but we had ambition, a capacity for hard work, determination to make the most of opportunities, good teachers and above all parents who set an example of hard work, honesty and thrift who wanted nothing more from life than their two boys should have a better life than they had and make the most of opportunities that were denied to them.

Nothing was denied to me Tony, and I doubt you also, as you've done well for yourself, well done Tony

[Apparently so]

These wee smilies are wonderful

Cause that's all you've got? if you want to be a troll and follow me grand, if you want to have some input to the discussion then go ahead, though I doubt it.

What the f**k are you on about?

Because I laughed at a post directed at you, I'm following you? What the f**k is a troll?

I think you take this internet thing a bit too seriously

       

[T Fearon]

MR2, I'm taking about opportunities denied to my parents, due admittedly more to social class and lack of means as opposed to religious discrimination (though many of that generation, including members of my wider family, suffered lamentably from this curse as well).

Any way kids today (there I'm officially old) from whatever creed or background have infinitely more opportunities but as in all aspects of life, it's really down to personal effort and initiative at the end of the day, as has been the case throughout history.

[Milltown Row2]

These wee smilies are wonderful

Cause that's all you've got? if you want to be a troll and follow me grand, if you want to have some input to the discussion then go ahead, though I doubt it.

What the f**k are you on about?

Because I laughed at a post directed at you, I'm following you? What the f**k is a troll?

I think you take this internet thing a bit too seriously

       

So are you going to have an opinion on this or just put up  /?

[Orior]

Forget education.... this is how to apply for a job

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2014/03/police_man_sends_dick_pic_with.php

[Milltown Row2]

Forget education.... this is how to apply for a job

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2014/03/police_man_sends_dick_pic_with.php

Depends on what job you are going for

[The Iceman]

A good friend of mine now living in London and I talk about this all the time. Not so much the underachievement of Protestants but the over-achievement of Catholics.
We can point to a load of friends and people we know who came from tough backgrounds but became very successful because of what we attribute to be "Oppressed Catholic syndrome" There is a work ethic and drive and a chip on the shoulder that protestants don't have or at least one they don't use as a tool to drive success. We all hit rough patches but the Catholic will drag himself out of it one way or the other I think. I might be talking a pile of shite ha but that's how I look at it all anyway.

[CD]

While the achievement of Protestant Working Class males is absolutely abysmal, the achievement of Catholic Working Class boys is merely atrocious. Let's not get carried away with ourselves.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

A good friend of mine now living in London and I talk about this all the time. Not so much the underachievement of Protestants but the over-achievement of Catholics.
We can point to a load of friends and people we know who came from tough backgrounds but became very successful because of what we attribute to be "Oppressed Catholic syndrome" There is a work ethic and drive and a chip on the shoulder that protestants don't have or at least one they don't use as a tool to drive success. We all hit rough patches but the Catholic will drag himself out of it one way or the other I think. I might be talking a pile of shite ha but that's how I look at it all anyway.

It is nothing to do with Catholic or Protestant, it is a nationalist-unionist thing. The working and middle class Protestants of the Republic are in nobody else's educational shadow.

[Rossfan]

So it's Unionism that makes them thick? 
Figures really......

[lawnseed]

When I went on to third level education the catholics were about 30% of our course. To be honest even the poorly qualified catholics were streets ahead of any of the prods. They punched in thier time drumming on the desks  and disrupting the lectures. I think some of them were capable but they didnt seem to want to take getting qualified seriously as if it didnt matter to them.. Almost as if they were going to make it even if didnt get qualified.. Obviously they thought because they were ruling class that their mates would give them a leg up

[Kidder81]

I remember coming across this a while back, dispels a few "poor me" myths from the Loyalist community, and makes it very clear that Catholics are in no position to be feeling proud of how some f our youngsters are performing at school.

http://sluggerotoole.com/2012/10/03/dispelling-the-myths-sustaining-loyalisms-grievance-narrative-part-one/

The inconvenient facts regarding socio-economic deprivation

Whilst it would appear quite easy for loyalists and their supporters within political unionism, the Loyal Orders and loyalist paramilitarism to make assertions regarding working class unionism being the fall guys for the peace process, what is utterly irrefutable is that the objective evidence from every source available points conclusively to the fact that working class catholic communities remain disproportionately represented amongst the ranks of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the north of Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) produced The Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure 2010, and it is viewed as 'the official measure of spatial deprivation in Northern Ireland.' It collates data relating to the status of individuals residing in every one of the 582 wards in Northern Ireland, using these figures to rank the status of each ward in relation to a range of domains including Income, Employment, Health Deprivation and Disability as well as Education, Skills and Training amongst others.

Whilst separate rankings exist for each domain, an accumulative overall multiple deprivation measure ranking is also provided. From this comparative analysis, a pretty coherent picture can be painted of the profile of the most socio-economically deprived communities:

14 of the 20 most deprived wards are predominantly catholic, including 8 of the most deprived 10 wards when assessed across all criteria.

Predominantly Catholic:  Whiterock, Falls, New Lodge, East (Strabane), Clonard, Creggan Central, Ardoyne, Twinbrook, Upper Springfield, The Diamond (Derry), Collin Glen, Water Works, Creggan South, Brandywell
Predominantly Protestant:  Shankill, Crumlin, Duncairn, Woodvale
Demographically mixed: Greystone, Ballymacarrett

16 of the 20 most deprived wards assessed on Household Income are predominantly catholic.

Predominantly Catholic:  Whiterock, Creggan Central, East (Strabane), Falls, New Lodge, Ardoyne, Collin Glen, Clonard, Creggan South, Shantallow East, Westland (Derry), Brandywell, Twinbrook, Upper Springfield, The Diamond (Derry), Ballycolman

Predominantly Protestant:   Shankill, Crumlin, Duncairn

Demographically mixed: Greystone

16 of the 20 most deprived wards assessed on Employment are predominantly catholic

Predominantly Catholic:  Whiterock, Creggan Central, East (Strabane), Falls, New Lodge, Ardoyne, Clonard, Creggan South, Shantallow East, Westland (Derry), Brandywell, Twinbrook, Upper Springfield, The Diamond (Derry), Ballycolman, Water Works

Predominantly Protestant:   Crumlin, Shankill, Duncairn
Demographically mixed Greystone

12 of the 20 most deprived wards assessed on Education, Skills and Training are predominantly protestant.

Predominantly Catholic: Falls, Whiterock, New Lodge, Upper Springfield, Collin Glen, East (Strabane), Corcrain

Predominantly Protestant:   Shankill, Crumlin, Woodvale, Dunanney, The Mount, Duncairn, Shaftesbury, Ballee, Woodstock, Tullycarnet, Glencairn, Northland

Demographically mixed: Ballymacarrett

Interestingly, a couple of demographically mixed wards also feature prominently amongst the most deprived neigbourhoods- Ballymacarrett in east Belfast and Greystone in Limavady (both approximately 50% catholic and 50% protestant at ward level.) Whilst the former is rigidly segregated, the latter can be recorded as the most deprived non-rigidly segregated mixed ward in Northern Ireland (not really any consolation in that though.) It is also worth noting that, although Diamond in Derry is more than 80% catholic, it also includes a sizeable minority protestant population.

The Peace Monitoring Report 2012 made reference to the facts regarding greater catholic levels of deprivation, an enduring feature of northern Irish life, when it reported that "the proportion of people who are in low-income households is much higher among Catholics (26%) than among Protestants (16%)."

The figures outlined above collectively point to a conclusion that, across the range of poverty and deprivation indicators, it is not sustainable to suggest that working class protestant communities are losing out to their catholic neighbours, who continue to predominate the range of lists ranking the most deprived communities in the State.

It is only in the field of Education and Skills that working class protestant communities appear to be faring even worse than their catholic counterparts, and this has been highlighted by unionist politicians and others throughout recent years (who are somewhat more reluctant to highlight the figures relating to overall deprivation, employment and income however.)

Indeed, education was back in the news yesterday with the revelation that 26 of the worst 30 wards for school pupil absenteeism are predominantly protestant, and this theme of educational underachievement and low attainment formed the basis of an excellent piece of research conducted by controlled sector educationalists, academics and some political figures, including Dawn Purvis, entitled Educational Underachievement and the Protestant Working Class: A Summary of Research for Consultation.

Their primary focus was on highlighting the worryingly bleak levels of performance by many protestant pupils in working class communities. Amongst their many findings was the revelation that "At Key Stage 2 in English and Maths, 11% of (mainly Protestant) controlled schools were designated Lower than expected (LTE) as against 3% of Catholic maintained schools."

But within their report, the authors correctly acknowledged that a majority of those pupils failing to achieve the basic minimum threshold of 5 GCSE grades (A*-C) were in fact catholic, underscoring the reality that educational underachievement and low attainment is a factor affecting both communities, a point reiterated in The Peace Monitoring Report 2012: "proportionately more Protestant than Catholic males leave school without five good GCSEs (49% versus 46%), because of the larger number of Catholics in this age cohort, there are in absolute terms slightly more Catholic than Protestant males under- achieving at this level (2,608 versus 2,363)."

The pattern of educational underachievement and low attainment straddling the two communities is once again underlined by an analysis of pupil attendance at grammar schools from working class communities. It may come as a surprise to some to learn that a higher number and percentage of pupils from Shankill attend grammar school than those from the New Lodge ward and more from Glencairn than Falls and Whiterock (based on Year 8 pupils, 2009/10 data.)

Hence the despair when political parties seek to sectarianise a genuine attempt to address low attainment across the school sectors as was the case when the DUP's 2011 Assembly election manifesto included the pledge to "Develop a strategy to assist Protestant working class boys who tend to have the lowest level of achievement, addressing issues such as aspiration, parental involvement and the value placed on education."

Note the complete absence of interest in the plight of working class catholic boys who form the majority of males failing to obtain the basic minimum threshold of five GCSEs (A*-C.)

There is a real need for political leaders and the statutory agencies they control to address the genuine needs of those most vulnerable within society, and amongst this number can be counted thousands of residents of the working class protestant and loyalist estates across the north of Ireland.

But seeking to sectarianise poverty and pit the poorest against one another by peddling a false narrative which perpetuates ghetto warfare and harms the prospect of a developing accommodation and reconciliation between the working class communities who bore the brunt of the conflict can not and should not be allowed to proceed unchallenged.

It represents the manifestation of a sectarian mindset being brought to governance, and is also ironically counterproductive to the longer term ambitions of political unionism- namely, to prove itself capable of embracing those from outside of the traditional PUL base.

[Myles Na G.]

While the achievement of Protestant Working Class males is absolutely abysmal, the achievement of Catholic Working Class boys is merely atrocious. Let's not get carried away with ourselves.

Spot on. The most significant differences in that research are gender based rather than sectarian. Catholic boys in the free school meals category do better, but not massively better than Protestant boys in the same category. It's the girls who are outperforming their male peers by a country mile, but noone seems to raise an eyebrow about this.

[ONeill]

We know Tony here.

He's a good poster.

However, he hates the binary opposite of what he follows, be it sport, religion or politics. Call it bigotry, sectarianism or norrow-mindedness. And you might be right. But that's our Tone. He'll revel in others' misfortune.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

We know Tony here.

He's a good poster.

However, he hates the binary opposite of what he follows, be it sport, religion or politics. Call it bigotry, sectarianism or norrow-mindedness. And you might be right. But that's our Tone. He'll revel in others' misfortune.

Misfortune being the opposite of the fortune one spends in booking a hotel room on the wrong weekend.