Fundamentalism thrives in North

AT the world atheist convention in Dublin last weekend, Labour Party Senator Ivana Bacik warned of “a creeping fundamentalism in Irish life”.

It is difficult to avert one’s eyes from the growing evidence that the most fundamentalist religious-political force in the western world, outside of the American far-right, is alive and well on this island. Though one of the apparently growing number of non-believers in Ireland, I do not, unlike Senator Bacik, believe this to be the Roman Catholic church.

Iris Robinson was a prominent member, and often spokesperson, of the DUP when she made her infamous remarks about the gay community.