Comment on Flags, Churches, Politicians, Sectarianism and Ordinary People by CL

Sure, Gari, i see your point. My impression of the conflict in the North is that it is mainly a matter of political allegiance, and religion was previously taken as a marker of political allegiance. Perhaps one of the results of the GFA-parity of esteem etc.-is that political allegiance is being sundered from religion;at least among Catholics.Maybe it could never be so assumed for all but now definitely, it cannot be assumed that if one is Catholic one is ‘naturally’ identified as Irish and favours re-unification. Maybe all the flag-waving is an attempt to re-assert the old certitudes, as a certain fracturing of allegiances and associated and dissociated identities occurs.
The Invention of the White Race, by Theodore Allen, 2 vols published by Verso, develops historically how ‘whiteness’ was constructed in America by the power elite to divide and keep oppressed the ‘lower orders’ both black and white. Whether a similar approach would be useful in the Irish context, as a prism through which to view sectarianism I don’t know.