In N. Ireland, census hints at shifting political equation

In the mainly Protestant Oldpark neighborhood of north Belfast, newly renovated houses stand silent and empty, waiting for families who will never come.

Across the nearby 12-foot-high brick fence, the so-called peaceline, children in the Catholic Ardoyne neighborhood ride bikes and kick balls along bustling streets where families of up to nine people are crammed into tiny, two-bedroom homes.

Bursting Ardoyne and silent Oldpark illustrate a new demographic reality that could have dramatic implications in a province that has endured 30 years of sectarian strife: The Catholic population is rising at a faster rate than that of Protestants.

Census figures to be released this summer are expected to show that, if current trends continue, the size of the Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland is likely to draw even within 20 years.

The prediction by demographers of a coming 50/50 Protestant/Catholic split has come as a seismic shock to the Protestant community. Protestants, who support the current union with Britain, will soon have to adjust to living in a state where their Catholic neighbors, who wish to be united with the rest of the island of Ireland, are equal in strength, or even more numerous.

"The debate is no longer whether the two communities will ever reach the same size, but what will happen after they do," says Colin McIlheney, head of research at the Belfast office of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who has studied census figures for 25 years.

A Catholic majority, however, is no guarantee of a united Ireland. About 10 percent of Catholics now support the union with Britain and may do so even when their community draws even numerically with Protestants, says McIlheney.

Dr. Brian Feeney, a former Belfast city councillor for the moderate Catholic party, the SDLP, and now a commentator on social change, says: "The figures mean the rival communities may have to embark on a 'charm offensive' to persuade each other of their respective causes - whether that be the status quo or a united Ireland."

The alternative could be a retreat from peace efforts here, and a society even more divided by bitterness, distrust, and violence, says Dr. Rick Wilford of the politics department of Queens University, Belfast.

"Young Catholics have bought into the [1998] Good Friday peace agreement as a transition to a united Ireland, which they believe can be achieved within a generation," Professor Wilford says.

"On the opposite side you have young male Protestants who are even more opposed than the older generation to a united Ireland. You can see that from the increasingly militaristic murals on the walls around Belfast, and from the fact that unionists who voted strongest against the Good Friday peace agreement were concentrated in this group."

Professor Wilford says that a Queen's University survey last year showed that, although 70 percent of Protestants would probably live with a united Ireland if they had to, 30 percent would never accept a united Ireland under any circumstances.

Some among the Protestant political leadership here have refused to acknowledge the demographic trends. Stephen King, an adviser to the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, rejects the inevitability of an imminent 50/50 split, saying "We believe this is the end of a trend, not the beginning."

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