I could almost hear the voice of the conservative Ulster farmer who issued a damning verdict using only polite words: ‘The DUP seem very, very influenced by material gain’ (225).

The most interesting voices here tend to belong to people who have made the biggest leap from one often inherited political belief system to another. Never does McKay come remotely close to resorting to the kind of condescension which can often be the default setting for intellectuals – whether from the Irish Republic or from Britain – when working-class Protestants are being discussed. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Once again, her subjects are ordinary Protestants who, as McKay puts it, “are outside the unionist mainstream” and often feel “excluded and unrepresented”.It was more - red top for number 52, make sure Mrs Murphy at 16 pays you for the cream from last week. Looking for a single book to tell you what to think about the province is a fool's errand in my humble opinion - and that book, if it existed, likely wouldn’t be worth reading. People (mainly Protestants) experience explosive events where they believe life will never be the same. That anxiety was already acute because of the looming possibility of Scottish independence and its ramifications for the union as well as the inexorable rise of Sinn Féin, a party predicated on the establishment of a united Ireland.

The burden of political violence and its effect on people's lives is passed from generation to generation.

I would agree that the diversity of Protestant opinion (and Republican for that matter) gets lost when discussing the constitutional question or social justice in general. This is a fantastic piece of writing, part sociological study, I was totally immersed in the views and opinions of those the author interviewed. Every year we publish a selection of books and pamphlets that address the key issues facing activists and trade unionists.

This book offers us a glimpse into the Protestant identity and we would do well to understand their fears and aspirations.But it is on the more personal, human level that “Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground” is really illuminating. It is unfortunate that the timing of publishing deadlines perhaps squeezed out the ability to record the train wreck of a transition in DUP leadership that was only developing at the time she was writing her epilogue, and the reimergence of the UUP as a serious and marginally progressive force, partly off the back of Robin Swann's handling of the poison chalice of Health Minister during the pandemic (and over and against his previous ineptitude as party leader and the curiously coterminous Venn diagram of Brexiters and anti-vax covid-deniers). The book is largely oral history with a few tidbits of historic background to help the general reader understand some references mentioned by interviewees.