The general Protestant majority obscures significant re¬ligious diversity within the Protestant community. No single religious institution speaks for Protestants in Northern Ireland over 75 percent of Protestants belong to either the Anglican Church of Ireland or the Pres¬byterian Church in Ireland, but the remaining, mostly evangelical, Protestants are fragmented into 45 distinct denominations. This historical fragmentation long com¬plicated efforts to unify the Protestant community be¬hind the peace process.
In spite of the Good Friday Agreement, the geographic demographics of Northern Ireland remain highly seg¬regated by religion. Many large areas are fairly homo-geneous, such as sections of Protestant County Antrim and Catholic County Fermanagh, and even “mixed” ar¬eas like Belfast are highly segregated at the local level. More than half of Belfast residents live in areas that are over 90 percent homogeneous. Schooling likewise re¬mains largely segregated, with most Catholic children attending Catholic schools and Protestants attending the Northern Irish public schools.
Conclusion
The arrival of peace in Northern Ireland required a comprehensive political settlement of the questions surrounding the territory’s status relative to the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, an end to para¬military activities on all sides, great dedication to peace from the British and Irish governments, and a willing¬ness of Northern Ireland’s political parties to share pow¬er across the national and religious divide.
The churches played a role in this process, but it would be wrong to give Christianity too much credit either for causing the conflict or for its resolution. Religion served as a marker of identity, compounding a nationalist con¬flict, while also eventually facilitating its peaceful reso¬lution. Sectarian tension continues in Northern Ireland today, but not on a scale comparable to that seen during much of the latter twentieth century.