Ireland is no stranger to religious or racial hatred. Part of the trouble is geography. Nurtured by religion and isolation, island monocultures often breed narrow minds and asocial practice. Clerical pedophilia and chronic alcoholism might be two Irish markers.  Vendetta and honor killings would be examples from other island cultures such as Sicily and Corsica.  Ireland’s antipathy for English Protestants is surely a legacy of colonial repression and a Reformation that never came to the Emerald Isle. Absence of religious reform is something that Irish and Muslim worlds have in common.  Irish cultural attitudes were surely influenced by English imperial overlords too who were for centuries the gold standard for presumptions of sectarian, class, and racial superiority. Not much of that history was lost on the Irish. British influence may have been formative, yet a monolithic Catholic Church was dominant in Ireland for over a thousand years. Many Irishmen like to...(Read Full Article)