Bar-room experts the length of Britain know the answer to the Irish Question. And they usually agree that 'we should pull our boys out and let the Irish fight it out themselves'. But who are the Irish?

More particularly, who are the Ulster Irish? And who are the Ulster Protestants that balance the Irish equation?

For generations Ulster men and women have proclaimed a savage will to fight - to remain separate from the rest of the Irish Nation - and year after year the walls of their Province have been daubed with their slogans: 'No Surrender!' 'No Pope Here!' 'Ulster says No!' 'We are the People!' We are the people, the chosen ones, true blue, inheritors to a noble tradition of resistance to Rome Rule. The most loyal corner of the royal British Isles. Geoffrey Beattie was born and bred in the Loyalist heartlands of North Belfast. For this book he has drawn on all his knowledge of his homeland and talked to all manner of Ulster men and women - doctors and businessmen, widows and children, prisoners in the Maze and Maghaberry prisons. The result is an attempt to get under the skin of the Protestant people of Ulster and explain a community many in the rest of Britain regard as impenetrable and intractable. It tells their story with rare humour and understanding, and with insights born of a lifetime's knowledge of this frequently criticised but little understood corner of the United Kingdom.

It is essential reading for all who think they know the answer to the Irish Question.