http://www.infoplease.com/spot/northireland1.html
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Catholicism vs. Protestants in Ireland
At first I did not understand why the helping of the Protestants in the "Wood" was a big deal. I did further research and learned that there is some sort of feud between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. In the 1600s the English came and took control of northern Ireland. This part Ireland was soon colonized by mostly Protestants from England. The rest of Ireland is a majority of Catholics. Over time the north became more profound in their industrialization, while the Catholics in the rest of country somewhat suffered. And during the 20th century there are even a few more occasions where the Irish Catholics try to rebel and take back their country, economically, from the British. The boy keeps him and his mother's mission a secret from his father because what they are doing would probably be considered treason to him.
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The Catholic-Protestant rivalry plays an especially captivating role in English and Irish literature, and is often used as a character device to make them seem more human because they act upon ideals with emotional fervor. I agree that there is significance with the boy's reluctance to inform his father of the wood crafting, because it draws a good parallel to similar the stories of James Joyce in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." The central figure, Stephen, remembers being threatened by his Catholic governess for playing with a Protestant girl from a very young age; and just like in "Wood," I believe religion informed the motives of the characters in a very deliberate, religiously empathetic way.
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