Quote:
And I can understand the Unionists desire to remain both British and on the land to which they were born, but beyond that idealism, is current (or even post-1922 in general) Irish government seen as inextricably tied to the Catholic Church, which seems to have been at least one of the biggest issues of the Unionists?

I don't know about "inextricably", but the Catholic church wields gigantic political power in the Republic, possibly more than in any other country, even Italy. Their influence is slowly declining, in favour of a more inclusive attitude to human rights, but it remains the case that anything which the Catholic church opposes has great difficulty making it into Irish law: homosexuality was only legalised in 1993, divorce in 1997 (!), unmarried couples have few rights, and abortion is illegal.

Peter