The focus, understandably, is very much on the inner workings of the DUP at the moment as its core group of elected representatives try to work out whose vision for the future makes more sense.

But that conversation focusing on Edwin Putz and Geoffrey Donaldson has given fresh legs to the wider debate about the state of unionism and Protestantism in this post-Brexit world. So in this edition of Red Lines,

we're going to explore that bigger issue with two writers who've been quietly working away

on new books on the subject. Susan, how would you sum up the current landscape for

northern Protestants, just in a couple of sentences, to get us started? I think that it's a very

diverse and interesting situation for Northern Protestants. And I think that it's a very diverse and interesting situation for

Northern Protestants and I think that as you mentioned, you know, the whole focus on the DUP

battle for the leadership sort of distracts from the fact that there's an awful lot more to

the Protestant community than political unionism. Claire, what's your research taught you so far?

Well, I've been working away at another little corner of the Protestantism. Claire, what's your research taught you so far? Well, I've been working away at another little corner of the Protestant imagination,

and that's modern dissenters, looking for the spirit of 1798 in the 21st century.

So that's taken me into all kinds of radical and more left-wing directions.

And yes, there's a thriving subculture there,

which really doesn't relate very much to the bigger struggles within unionism either.

Well, it'll be interesting to see what overlap there is between the two of you in this

conversation. Susan McKay is no stranger to the airwaves, especially at the moment. Her new book, Northern Protestants, On Shifting Ground, is due for publication very soon, as is a new edition of her best-selling book, Northern Protestants, an unsettled people from 20 years ago. Claire Mitchell is a former Queen's University academic who's writing a book, as she says, on radical Protestant Republicans,

past and present. Welcome to Red Lines to both of you. It's good to be having this conversation.

It feels very timely. Susan, why did you decide to revisit the subject you delved so deeply into two

decades ago? When I wrote Northern Protestants and Unsettled People, it was immediately after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

And a lot of the interviews that I did were with people sort of around the time of the Good Friday Agreement.

And it was a very, very big moment for Northern Ireland.

And there were a lot of big decisions for people from a Protestant background to make at that time, as in fact there were, of course, for everybody.

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