I attended the comedy night in the empire to find myself wondering (before alcohol severely reduced my ability to reason) why there always seem to be so many more catholics/culchies in there than regular normal run-of-the-mill prods? I understand that students from the predominantly protestant and unionist east of the province are much more likely to travel to the mainland for university, but is there more to it than that?

Week in week out the question is asked "How many prods in the house?" quickly followed by "How many taigs in the house?" Without exception the second cheer is louder, and without exception the standup will say something like "I bet you two wish you'd kept quiet now."

There could be any number of reasons for this, the first of which I mentioned above about there simply being more catholic students in Northern Ireland due to the increased willingness of protestant students to travel elsewhere in the British Isles for university - but can that explain it all?

Follow up:

Is it due to the more rural nature of the catholic population that they're simply more inclined to respond with a loud cheer to such a question? Is it because the few protestants there have been before and know what's coming? Or is it because protestants are less likely to attend this sort of night?

I don't buy the sense-of-humour bypass theory, and I'm not sure the travels of protestant students can explain it all either. Perhaps its the nature of the show that's put on (there tends to be at least some degree of common English-bashing each week).

I do have one theory that may be more worrying though. Have we simply reached the stage where the protestants/unionists in Northern Ireland have reached the stage of an intimidated minority, afraid to speak out (despite actually being a numerical majority)? I can't help but wonder if it's simply that they've had guilt drummed into them for so long that they don't want to speak up.

Consider the situation in England - a comic comes onto the stage and asks "How many white folk have we in?" and then "Have we any Asians in the house?". Am I wrong in thinking it's entirely possible the second question would receive a much more voiciferous response (assuming the presence of about 20% asian-descent folk)?

Why? Is this just guilt - a symptom of an overly political correct society? Perhaps the audience is largely upper-working to lower-middle class. Such socio-economic status seems to bring with it a sense of guilt on the majority side. They seem more or less embarrassed by the actions of the radicals on their side of the fence and that is not mirrored by the same classes of people on the minority side.

The problem with this though, if it's true, is that it only feeds the extremes. They can now portray themselves as a true minority, because not only are they up against "the other side" they're up against those with 'guilty-prod syndrome' (a term I picked up from one of the wankers at LoveUlster).

So, are these happenings a complete irrelevance due to some obscure factor (like the proximity of the Empire to the Holylands? or the number of Protestants who head to the mainland for uni?) or is it the sign of a deeper guilt/inner shame or even fear where they feel that they are unable to be proud of or even admit who they are?

Any thoughts?

I'll clear up now that I'm drunk writing this, so if I've caused any offence (I hope I didn't), I apologise.