Arlene Foster going to be the new First Minister?

[JPGJOHNNYG]

This Taigs must be a Belfast or city thing, have never heard it anywhere else, Kinda lowers yourself calling uself a term which offends

Er he is using the term to underline the disdain for catholics among the DUP. The term taig has been used for centuries and in Scotland the anglicized Tim is used in the same way.

[T Fearon]

Sorry,but even growing up in Portadown with all the hazards back in the day being from the minority community,I didn't witness a lot of raw anti Catholicism,or hatred of Catholics.Times have changed too,now the town centre is now almost awash with GAA and Celtic shirts,with no one batting an eye lid.

I don't believe any substantial section of unionism is anti catholic people or hates catholic people irrationally.

[Wildweasel74]

Then you are a fool!!

[red hander]

Sorry,but even growing up in Portadown with all the hazards back in the day being from the minority community,I didn't witness a lot of raw anti Catholicism,or hatred of Catholics.Times have changed too,now the town centre is now almost awash with GAA and Celtic shirts,with no one batting an eye lid.

I don't believe any substantial section of unionism is anti catholic people or hates catholic people irrationally.

You mustn't have lived in the Tunnel then (my grandmother and mother did). They didn't have a sectarian bone in their body, but they had any amount of stories about the bigotry and hatred in Portadown. All I can say is, you were very lucky... unlike Robert Hamill and plenty of others

[T Fearon]

I'm not talking about a relatively small minority of scum,and on more than one occasion I had to do a pretty good impression of Usain Bolt to escape a hiding for no other reason than my religion,but I don't think there was widespread anti Catholicism or hatred of Catholics.

By the way in recent times have Protestants not been beaten up while walking in the Tunnel and wasn't the DUP mayoress the subject of sectarian abuse in the nearby People's Park?

[armaghniac]

I don't believe any substantial section of unionism is anti catholic people or hates catholic people irrationally.

The entire unionist project is anti native. Individuals do not reflect on the contrast of being personally decent while pursuing a political philosophy designed to make "Catholics" second class citizens.

[T Fearon]

Undoubtedly there are some unionists who are anti Catholic but these are a tiny minority.Neither do I believe Unionism seeks to render non unionists second class citizens.I think it's core aim is simply to preserve the union but admittedly it needs to be much more inclusive and less exclusively Protestant in this regard

[red hander]

I'm not talking about a relatively small minority of scum,and on more than one occasion I had to do a pretty good impression of Usain Bolt to escape a hiding for no other reason than my religion,but I don't think there was widespread anti Catholicism or hatred of Catholics.

By the way in recent times have Protestants not been beaten up while walking in the Tunnel and wasn't the DUP mayoress the subject of sectarian abuse in the nearby People's Park?

I wasn't aware of that. Totally inexcusable. But Portadown did (does) have a reputation unlike other similar sized towns of similar make-up

[armaghniac]

Undoubtedly there are some unionists who are anti Catholic but these are a tiny minority.Neither do I believe Unionism seeks to render non unionists second class citizens.I think it's core aim is simply to preserve the union but admittedly it needs to be much more inclusive and less exclusively Protestant in this regard

The union is a colonisation project, whose objective is subject the natives to the rule of the colonisers. This is the elephant in the room which unionists pretend does not exist and where in a version of the Stockholm syndrome many people from a nationalist background now buy into this also.

[give her dixie]

I'm not talking about a relatively small minority of scum,and on more than one occasion I had to do a pretty good impression of Usain Bolt to escape a hiding for no other reason than my religion,but I don't think there was widespread anti Catholicism or hatred of Catholics.

By the way in recent times have Protestants not been beaten up while walking in the Tunnel and wasn't the DUP mayoress the subject of sectarian abuse in the nearby People's Park?

Tony, would soccer related trouble in Portadown be more of a problem than sectarian trouble?

[stew]

This Taigs must be a Belfast or city thing, have never heard it anywhere else, Kinda lowers yourself calling uself a term which offends

It depends on the context on which it was said.

As for diplomacy and his need to be more diplomatic, why? It is refreshing to see a politician call a spade a spade and back it up.

[T Fearon]

Soccer related trouble unheard apart from the odd skirmish with Cliftonville.Sectarian continues to be a problem in general,but there is no attempt to make anyone second class citizens these days

[armaghniac]

Soccer related trouble unheard apart from the odd skirmish with Cliftonville.Sectarian continues to be a problem in general,but there is no attempt to make anyone second class citizens these days

Northern Ireland was set up to advantage one class of people over another. Things have improved, to be sure, but there are still first and second class citizens, the main difference now is that the second class group have been acclimatised to touching to the forelock.

[stew]

Sorry,but even growing up in Portadown with all the hazards back in the day being from the minority community,I didn't witness a lot of raw anti Catholicism,or hatred of Catholics.Times have changed too,now the town centre is now almost awash with GAA and Celtic shirts,with no one batting an eye lid.

I don't believe any substantial section of unionism is anti catholic people or hates catholic people irrationally.

Tony I lived in that hellhole portadown for the first seven years of my life, in number one queens gardens no less in killycomaine, our neighbors were brilliant and mostly prods but loyalist scum from a nearby estate came and threw a petrol bomb through my sister's window and set her bed on fire. My mother was spat on when walking to work and to this day I have never known a more bitter community that that shithoke you called home. My uncle Kenny Brownlee is a prod and he and his wife got dogs abuse for years and they live in portadown, I don't buy your utopian view on that down Tone.

[T Fearon]

Funnily enough I spent two very early years of my life in Killicomaine,before the troubles started.Portadown is staunchly unionist but I do not think unionists as individuals are anti Catholic in any great numbers.