My dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn’t especially religious.

Blair contrasts the strongly secular outlook he attributes to his father with the more culturally inflected, less observant Protestant background of his mother. The juxtaposition frames his early home environment as one where religion was present more as identity and family inheritance than as active practice, while skepticism (even combative skepticism) was also close at hand. In effect, the remark situates Blair’s later public interest in faith and ethics against a childhood shaped by mixed signals: a forceful atheist influence alongside a looser, tradition-based connection to Protestantism. It also hints at the complexity of “religious upbringing,” distinguishing belief and devotion from heritage and community affiliation.