Free Hateland by Bernard O'Mahoney

when Elizabeth sat me down and told me she wanted to explain a few things before I met her family. She said her mother had quite extreme views on a number of issues and, however ridiculous I found them, she'd like me to respect them.
        In essence, her mother was a fundamentalist Protestant who didn't like having anything to do with Catholics. Nor did she want her children having any such dealings. Elizabeth said she couldn't be honest with her mother about my background. In her mother's eyes, because I'd been born a Catholic, I'd always be a Catholic, at least until I'd been rebaptised as a born-again Protestant.
        I'd never really liked the term 'born a Catholic'. I hadn't been born a Catholic. I'd been born naked and screaming. My religion had been imposed upon me. If I'd been born in India I'd likely have been a Sikh or a Hindu or a Muslim. The only God I'd ever worshipped was George Best - and he came from the Ulster Protestant tradition. Elizabeth knew my views and agreed with them to a large extent, but she asked me, for the sake of family harmony, to keep my Catholic background secret. In fact, she wanted me to lie.
        She knew her mother would pick up on my Catholic name, so she suggested a cover story. If asked, I was to say my family came originally from Eire but had been Protestants for generations, the stain of Catholicism having been expunged long ago. Her other stricture was that I'd be sure not to swear or blaspheme in front of her mother. I said, 'Of course I'm not going to swear!' But she explained that, for her mother, swearing and blaspheming came together in the use of such words as 'Jesus', 'God' and 'bloody'. Nor could I expect to drink alcohol in her mother's house - or even give the impression I'd ever drunk alcohol anywhere in the world at any time. Apart from all that, she thought I'd get on fine. Elizabeth had yet to meet my family, so, out of pity for what the future might have in store, I agreed to her terms.
        I felt deeply uncomfortable as I walked up the pathway to her parents' bungalow clutching a bottle of non-alcoholic drink. It wasn't the natural discomfort everyone feels before a first meeting with a partner's parents. It was more the uncomfortable feeling of knowing that, quite literally, I couldn't be myself.
        The mother greeted us at the door, the personification of good manners. Very softly spoken, she was slim, about 5 ft 8 in., with silver-white hair. She led us politely into the sitting room.
        I wish Elizabeth had prepared me for the appearance of it. I was faced with what I can only describe as a shrine to the Reverend Doctor Ian Paisley, scourge of Fenians and hater of popery The face of Orange Number One beamed out from numerous photos in which he was often standing alongside Elizabeth's mother.
        There was even a photo of the two of them together in that very room. Photos of the Queen and the Royal Family were also prominent, along with lots of little figurines and knick-knacks of historical figures such as King William of Orange.
        Elizabeth's dad sat in one of the armchairs. He was about 60, short, thick-set with large gnarled hands. His white hair was balding. He got up to shake my hand and I noticed he had a bad limp. I found out later that this resulted from a wound received when the IRA blew up his Land-Rover with a culvert bomb.
        Over Christmas dinner, his wife said he'd been taken to a hospital where, she claimed, he'd been refused treatment by the Fenians who worked there. He'd been airlifted to Belfast and had ended up being pensioned off. He was extremely quiet and hardly ever spoke. The conversation as a whole was polite and stilted. I was extremely edgy, worried I'd say something to identify me as a Fenian interloper. I sipped my ginger beer temperately, trying to anticipate the mother's questions in order to give myself time to prepare acceptable answers.
        I was probably being over-sensitive,