Last week's riots in Belfast and elsewhere, but also the recent courageous stand by a number of clergy against sectarian violence and harassment in parts of the North, call to mind a forthright Christian witness 70 years ago.
The poet Louis MacNeice's father, John Frederick MacNeice, was bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore in 1935. He was originally from Connemara, taken as an infant from Omey Island, at a time of tension in 1879 arising from the land war and the after-effects of evangelical missions to the west. He was ordained in 1908 and was for many years rector of Carrickfergus.
He wrote to my father, who was doing research on Northern Ireland, on September 17th, 1936: "I think, if you don't mind, it would be better, I mean for me, if you did not mention the Covenant, i.e. my not having signed it." (The Ulster Covenant of 1912 was a mass petition against Home Rule.)
In 1931 MacNeice became bishop of Cashel and thus had experience of the South post-independence. The Church of Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s, especially the more isolated country clergy, was quite demoralised, with shrinking numbers, an uncertain future, and faced with what they perceived as ill-concealed Roman Catholic triumphalism.
At times of tension in the North, some Protestant businesses in small towns in the South were boycotted, which could force closure.
Bishop MacNeice was an educated man of forthright and humane convictions which he applied equally to both sides of the Border. As he stated in his appeal for peace at St Thomas's Church, Belfast, on July 2nd, 1935: "Geography has little to do with the interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount". The backdrop to the dangers of sectarianism in Belfast was the Europe of the dictators. He stated with remarkable clarity that in Germany no straightforward interpretation of any part of the Gospel could be reconciled with Hitler's concept of the totalitarian state, and the same could be said of Italy.
Minorities also had responsibilities not to use provocative language or violence. It was a time to disarm all citizens, irrespective of party or church. In the old days the enemy was a person of another race. Those who were Christians were so by virtue of their shared humanity and not because they were Jew, Samaritan or Roman. "We are here, in the presence of God, Protestants and Roman Catholics side by side in a small country. It must be that we are here not to destroy one another, but, while we have opportunity, to help one another." The church could not be sub-Christian.
In his sermon he stated that he longed to see Belfast the freest place in Ireland, "a city of justice, a city of plenty, a city of peace, where all success would be based on service".
A fortnight later, in St. Anne's Cathedral, he preached another sermon dedicated to the men of Queen's Island (the shipyard workers) as a warm admirer of their craftsmanship: "The present troubles have brought sorrow and shame to all who have at heart the city's honour and the well-being of the citizens". Human life was losing its sacredness.
In Belfast people had been killed in recent riots, and men, women and children pitilessly driven from house and home, because of their religion. "This way of regarding social relationships is a way back to barbarism," he said. People had a right to life and to protection by the State.
They had a right to their opinions. "To veto men's opinions would be to rob men of their humanity". In a really civilised country, citizens would not arm one against another. A policy of reprisals was no policy at all for people who claimed to be disciples of Christ. "A minority, whether North or South, just because it is a minority, should be able to feel secure against assault or insult". "As far as our church is concerned, her members may belong to any party".
At the synod that November he criticised a situation where "zeal for civil and religious liberty, for all men and not merely for its own people, grows cold".
In a pastoral letter the following year of June 27th, 1936, MacNeice warned that there were in every section of the population members who could be easily led into lawless and anti-social causes. Neighbourliness helped to create the right kind of human relationships, and what was needed in every part of Ireland was a just and enlightened public opinion. "It would be a gross misuse of language to describe as Roman Catholics or Protestants those who, in passion or in cold blood, burn houses, destroy property, attack defenceless people, stain their hands in human blood."
The defence of individual citizens was the obligation of the State, and the birthright of every member of a civilised community.
Bishop MacNeice died in 1942. Long before ecumenism, he wanted clergy to join together to vindicate basic Christian and human values.
His sermon at St Thomas's is quoted at the beginning of the Patten Report. Though critical of too much dwelling on the past, he admired the Orange Order, when it was dignified and disciplined, but not, it may be inferred, when it was a catalyst for gross disorder.
Today, one cannot but contrast unionist pleas for sympathetic understanding of recent outbursts of loyalist violence and alienation, including the attempted displacement of responsibility for it, with the zero tolerance insisted upon towards any republican paramilitary activity.
Dean John Paterson, who recently passed away, mounted in the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral with Government backing a permanent exhibition that displays church silver and vestments from the reigns of James II and William III, a period recollected here with tranquillity. He inaugurated a fine female voice choir.
He promoted the civic contribution of Christ Church to wider Dublin life. There are more traditions in Irish Protestantism than are dreamt of in the Orange Order's philosophy.