in the newspapers it always tells when someone is muslim but it never says joe bloggs christian or joe bloggs jew or joe bloggs atheist ? or does it and ive not noticed?
Gromit....the Northern Ireland situation was and still is, very complicated, to say the least. But which religion you belong to is still very germane to the "Troubles". I can say with almost complete confidence that 100% of the IRA were Catholic and 100% of the Loyalists were Protestant. The issue has moved over the years from religious differences to political, tribal and social concerns but religion is still very much an issue.
It's additional information as tony says, the paper thinks it'll interest us. Our local rag has a similar awful habit of adding "mum-of-one" or "grandad of six" to a news story, when the person's family arrangements are of no relevance at all to the story.