The Protestants of Northern Ireland have long been pilloried for their siege mentality, their resistance to change and for what their critics characterise as an unsavoury mixture of reactionary instincts and religious bigotry. The British encouraged them to move to Ireland essentially as a garrison community for Britain’s own defensive purposes. Those settlers were bound to develop a siege mentality given that they experienced actual sieges, most famously Londonderry in 1689.
