Children's Express reporters grilled Susan McKay about her controversial new book, “Northern Protestants, An Unsettled People”. They found the author truthful, frank and to the point.
| I needed to understand what the people that I come from were thinking and doing at the turn of this century. |
Susan McKay, who has worked as a journalist for ten years felt compelled to write about Northern Protestants to broaden people's understanding and to examine her personal background. "The book is an exploration of the people I uneasily call my own," she said. "I wanted to do the book for two reasons - professionally I just felt that there is not enough known about Northern Protestants, particularly in the Republic. People have an idea that it is Paisley and that's it," she said. On a more personal note, Susan said "as a person from a Northern Protestant background, I needed to understand what the people that I come from were thinking and doing at the turn of this century."
For many the book opens up a can of worms. Several critics have slammed Northern Protestants, saying that it highlights the bad and diminished the good of Protestants in the community. Others said the book is essential and enlightening reading. Northern Protestants touches a number of nerve endings and has become controversial, although Susan said her ultimate aim was "to record the feelings of a people at a particularly interesting time in their history."
"Some people have been very angry and offended by the book but quite a lot of people have said they found it liberating because it is acknowledging things that a lot of people are uncomfortable about," she said.
"Paramilitaries don't operate in isolation and there have been, sort of, tacit messages given to the paramilitaries over the years by the Unionist hierarchy and by the Orange Order really that it was all right for paramilitaries to go and do the dirty work, you know. "So, I would like not to see the blame entirely falling on the paramilitaries, I think it's up to the political leaders to provide an alternative and that's what's really badly needed at the moment," she said.
Susan, who hoped to complete the book in six months, actually took eighteen months after editing and fact checking. She deliberately avoided an academic style. "The book has to be full of life. It has to be actually about the way people live and the way people really talk. I wanted not just to do sort of fixed interviews, I wanted to go out and be in the fields at Drumcree listening to the way people talk," she said. Susan wanted "the unvarnished truth."
She felt sometimes being a woman worked to her advantage. "I think within Unionist politics there is a lack of respect for women in general, there are very few women who have made it into prominent positions within Unionist politics," she said. "You almost get this thing that you are not taken seriously, which actually works to your advantage as a reporter because it means that politicians are more unguarded with you," she added. "Sometimes," she admitted "it is quite embarrassing being in company with people who are quite sort of sneering about you being a woman."
Asked if she would be writing a similarly detailed book about the Catholic Community, Susan said "I think it's very much a thing for people from their own community to do this type of book. For a start I don't think people would confide in me and I don't think I would be best placed to do it."
Susan took part in a discussion with fellow author Marianne Elliot organised by the Belfast festival about Understanding Identity in Northern Ireland.
The Final Analysis...
Gary Menleey, 17 - "I thought it was very ironic seeing the title itself is "Northern Protestants, An Unsettled People," because it's so current. It relates to everything at this moment, because the Ulster Unionist Party is divided, the Orange Order at Drumcree, it's getting divided. The book is pretty frank and true."
Paul Cromie, 17 - "Well, it is pretty accurate as well. I mean I was shocked too. I joked earlier on that I read all the bad reviews, maybe these people are a bit sort of bigoted themselves and perhaps you just show them, you know, that you are obviously from a Protestant background and you are in the Protestant community, but you're still firmly impartial in what you are doing so it's a credit to yourself that you are getting all these bad reviews.
Michael Leathem, 14 - "It does make you feel ashamed though. I mean you come down here and you see it, there's Protestants and Catholics get along well. There's good and bad on both sides and it just makes you feel angry sometimes because you come to, like, youth clubs and cross community things and they get along so well and then you have the paramilitaries that want to wreck it for everyone." By journalists tory
About the team
Susan took part in a discussion with fellow author Marianne Elliot organised by the Belfast festival about Understanding Identity in Northern Ireland. This article was produced by Michael Leathem 14, Andrew McKay 17, Paul Cromie, 17, Gary Menleey, 17 and Lisa Skinner 16. It was published on the Belfast Festival website.
