Karl Duncan, a member of the SDLP from Creggan in Derry, who lives in Dublin, attending the party's conference in Belfast
Growing up in a Protestant family in south Belfast, Ross Neill was never taken to Orange Order parades, “or any of those kind of trappings, though we would still have considered ourselves Protestants”.
Today, Neill, a solicitor in his early 20s now living in Dublin, is a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), something he says with a chuckle would probably have been seen by his grandparents “as a rather shocking development”.
The family’s cross-Border links began to change as his sisters “went against the system by going down to study in Dublin”, Neill told The Irish Times during a break in the SDLP’s conference in Belfast at the weekend.
“It was through seeing their lifestyle there that began to break down my perceptions and understandings,” Neill goes on. He considers himself Irish but recognises that “is very hard for a lot of my fellow Protestants to feel at the minute”.
Within that community
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