Dr. Claire Mitchell:

Maidin mhaith, a chairde. Gabhaim buíochas leis an gcoiste as an gcuireadh. I will talk from the perspective of a northern Protestant woman, and author of a recent book, The Ghost Limb: Alternative Protestants and the Spirit of 1798. The book includes interviews with 20 northern Protestants who are reconnecting with the politics of the United Irishmen and women; their thoughts about Irishness and the future of the island.

My comments will make more sense if I briefly explain the ghost limb. I grew up in a family of religious dissenters in Belfast. My parents are Quakers. Our faith was anti-sectarian and pacifist. We were never unionists. We always supported reunification and our passports were Irish. Having this alternative, dissenting Protestant identity, I have struggled to feel fully at home in the red, white and blue areas I have always lived in. This is the ghost limb - a feeling of being out of place, like part of you is cut off. That you need to hide your politics, hide your Irishness.

About five years ago, I was given a book, Sites of the 1798 Rising in Antrim and Down. A friend and I started to take our kids on trips after school, to sites close to where we lived. We soon realised that our very unionist, loyalist presenting town was once a hub of United Irish activity. We talked about this to others, and it emerged that very few of us had been taught anything about this history. Growing up, we had limited ways to engage with our Irishness.

In learning more about 1798, I began to realise that northern Protestants like us have always existed from Mary Ann McCracken to Alice Milligan to Betty Sinclair. At each crucial juncture of Irish history, people from Protestant backgrounds, and Protestant women, have been to the fore. Anti-sectarian; believing in equality; democrats, socialists and-or civic republicans for whom Ireland was and is home, regardless of DNA.

During the Troubles, these histories fell silent. Alternative Protestants lived in a cultural underground fearing to speak and politically homeless. Until the book came out, it was quite difficult to create space culturally, politically and in the media, for alternative Protestant stories. We would often be invited, for example, to participate in a project about northern Protestants, only to end up on the cutting room floor. Often, the tape that made the cut was very male, very muscular - a very particular type of loud and conservative unionism and loyalism. This has skewed people's perceptions of the Protestant community in the North, which is very diverse, often progressive.

An adversarial news media environment exacerbates this imbalance. With children and, in my case, also a disability, it is difficult to participate in last minute, confrontational debates, especially when the consequences of speaking are so serious. All of the people in the book have been Lundied, charged with being traitors to our own community, sometimes online; other times, in the real world. Everyone here will be familiar with the chill effect for people, especially women, who speak on sensitive political issues. It is also important to say that unionist and loyalist women are subject to similar types of intimidation and harassment.

There are alternative northern Protestant women, of course, who have refused to be silent. Linda Ervine tells her story in the book, about her work creating a different narrative around Protestants and the Irish language. Reverend Karen Sethuraman speaks about coming from a working class loyalist family in east Belfast, ending up as chaplain to a series of Sinn Féin mayors. Karen has recently joined the board of Ireland's Future. Kellie Turtle, a feminist activist, talks about the cross-community nature of the women's movement in the North of Ireland, and how working with feminists on repeal the eighth, and subsequent campaigns, has deepened all-island relationships.

Half of the people in the book want Irish unity quickly. The others are waiting to see what unity might look like. A few of us have chosen to participate in public constitutional debates. Participation does not always feel safe. It is not a coincidence that the northern Protestants who speak at the very large Ireland's Future events are predominantly male. This does not reflect the level of interest in constitutional change among northern Protestant women. I have led and attended all-women panels about these subjects but they are smaller, quieter, not for broadcast.

Professor Jennifer Todd, Dr. Joanne McEvoy and Professor Fidelma Ashe have made recent submissions to this committee about how to amplify women's voices in the constitutional debate. I concur with their findings regarding small deliberative events and cafes and bringing the conversation to where people live. This could transform conversations on Irish unity.

I believe many northern Protestants, including women, will want to be part of this constitutional dialogue. Alternative Protestants may have a role to play in these conversations, as a bridge and as interlocutors. Perhaps this book could help people locate these alternative northern Protestant worlds.