Nuance beyond the sound bites The conflict in Northern Ireland is so well-covered that I suspect this is one region where Americans feel that have a good grip on the root cause: religion. Not necessarily so says Finan O'Toole in The New Republic. Anyone with a good understanding of the subtleties of the English Reformation could have guessed this of course. The standard model posits Catholic Gaels against Presbyterian Scots supporting the Anglican English elite. There a few problems with this rendering....

• The Anglo-Irish, the English speakers that dwelt in the eastern region around Dublin and the towns around the periphery and dated back to the Norman invasion of Ireland were the ones to lead the Counter-Reformation.
• The Wild Irish (Gaelic speakers) of the hinterlands tended to be quite neutral in the religious dispute until quite late (which follows since the Irish practiced their own version of Christianity until the Roman model was imposed on them).
• Many of the Scots settlers were Catholic (today the highland regions of Scotland are one of the major strongholds of indigenous British Catholicism-explaining their allegiance to Bonny Prince Charles).
• The Presbyterian (Dissenter) Protestant minority was until the late 19th century more sympathetic toward the Catholics than the Anglican elite because they suffered similar discrimination. In fact, they were the early impetuous behind Irish nationalism.
• The Catholic hierarchy was in general not supportive of Irish nationalism.
• Catholic-Protestant intermarriage was relatively common in Ulster (even between Oliver Cromwell's soldiers and native Irish women) in the initial periods of settlement.
• Many Protestants were supportive of the Stewart claim to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland

These facts point to the observation that we view the Northern Ireland conflict (as do the modern participants) through contemporary eyes of religious fundamentalism. But the original religious equanimity of the region indicates that Steve Sailer's contention that it is in fact a racial (genetic) conflict over land might have something going for it.