The Minority Mind

The 'minority question' disrupted twentieth-century Europe but in Catholic Ireland minority groups helped shape a more pluralist society.

Ireland's partition was ultimately about religious minorities and their oppression – real or imagined, anticipated or remembered. This book explains how in the twenty-six Counties, Jews and Protestants, with an oppositional cultural vocation, attracted discrimination and inspired a wide scholarly debate and helped shape a more pluralist society.Partition was about minorities and their oppression – real or imagined, anticipated or remembered – which inspired a wide debate, still relevant today for the future of Northern Ireland. The partitionist assumptions – that a new nation-state required religious homogeneity and that minorities would be victimised – were rooted in historical experience and reflected contemporary political practice. This book illuminates the historical significance of religious minorities in southern Ireland at a time when the twenty-six Counties formed 'a Catholic state for a Catholic people'. Dragged into a process of nation building about which Jews and Protestants had serious reservations, they often felt like guests of an unappeasable host. Many emigrated, but those who stayed offered a critical contribution to civil society. Based on a wide range of primary sources, including recently discovered personal diaries, Eugenio F. Biagini's holistic account of the minority experience explains the role of entrenched diversity in shaping attitudes to civil rights and national identity.