A modern world study – Northern Ireland

3. Sources D and E are not very useful to assess the extent of discrimination against Catholics. As already said source D is an evidence from just one football club and cannot be used to generalise all football clubs. Moreover, in source E we know Paisley said something against the employment of catholic workers but we do not know from the source whether they followed it or not. It can be Paisley and his supporters discriminated to a point of which the employers did not know off to imply or not. These sources ideas are based only on two different ideas; this is not very representative because other cases such as education, housing, and employment are not discussed.

4. Sources F and G disagree completely to how the catholic community should be treated. According to source F, an extract from a newspaper interview with Basil Brooke, prime minister of Northern Ireland. He is arguing that Catholics should be treated differently because he thinks they are going to turn against Northern Ireland if they are giving the higher positions. An evidence for this is when he says: "But how can you give somebody who is your enemy a higher position in order to allow him to come and destroy you". His reference to the Catholics as an enemy means he is prejudice against them and will therefore discriminate against them in terms of positions in the society.

However, source G disagrees with source F. Terence O'Neill a former prime minister says if you treat a catholic the same way as a protestant and give them the same benefits and opportunities as a protestant, a catholic will begin to live like a Protestants because he is going to learn from neighbours living the same way. He thinks the Catholics will become more responsible, cut their reproduction rates and will become similar to Protestants.

5. Londonderry became a centre for the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland for a couple of reasons. First of all, the civil rights movement was set up by a group of young Catholics to speed up the ideas of O'Neill's reforms. Since Londonderry was a catholic dominated area, the civil rights movement decided to base there because they expected the to find out what they were looking for there. The aims of this movement were:

* To end unfair voting practise.

* To demand a fair system of allocating housing this will cause an end to discrimination.

* End to gerrymandering, which is creating boundaries to elections. Their methods of working were marching to demonstrate.

In sources H, I and J there are a lot of evidence to support the aims of the civil rights movement. In source H, is a photograph of the house of a catholic family taken in Londonderry in the 1960's. It shows the poor living conditions of this family. The evidence for this is the poor building shown and the state of the bath outside. This supported the civil rights movement's aim of fair system of allocating housing since the Protestants were always allocated the best housing.

Moreover in source I, results of local elections in Londonderry in 1966 show the nationalists with the most votes but unionists going to power. These results apparently reveal the unfair voting practises and the act of gerrymandering assumed by the civil rights movement even though is not verbally stated in the source. Gerrymandering was the process how the unionists moved local government election boundaries so that they could win control of local councils as well. Protestant unionists used this power to help their own community resulting in Catholics finding it difficult to get jobs and decent council houses.

Source J also goes on to show the number of voter's in each Derry constituency and the number of councillors chosen. There is an element of unfair choosing of councillors in Northward and Southward. In the northward constituency with 2530 catholic and 3946 protestant voters, 8 unionists councillors were elected compared to southward with over 70% catholic population but 8 nationalists councillors elected.

6. In source K, Ian Paisley says that the IRA or those who were dedicated to the views and objectives of that army which is to break from England through terror and violence are backing the Civil rights movement. Apparently, Paisley thinks the Ira are those influencing the civil rights movement.

Source L does not support Paisley's views. Source l is talking about the proportion of members in the movement and does not make any emphasis to who was behind it. According to Michael Farrell, the movement was a mixture of political parties and though there were a number of republicans, he is saying they never ruled the movement.

However, Source M agrees with paisley's views in a sense. According to the report, the movement was made up of people from all political backgrounds but with the membership mostly roman catholic. An evidence for this source's support to paisley's views is when the report states," there is no doubt that the IRA has taken a close interest in the beginning". This means the IRA had an influence in the activities or strategies of the movement.

7. In source N, the cartoonist has drawn people who seem to be in a group because of their looks but separated in another way. They are taking some steps (walking) and look a bit violent. The people in the cartoon look angry and one of them seems to be pointing out some issues. It seems they are walking on top of a block with a whole in the middle.

The cartoonist seems to be saying that the people in the cartoon are divided because of some violence or personal opinions of something. On the sides of the building the cartoonist has dates and phrases such as: "REMEMBER 1690 ULSTER, 1916 UP THE PROVOS". The writing is rough and has an element of anger in it. I think the cartoonist believes that those dates or events are what is keeping the people divided. Basically, the cartoonist believes history is dividing the people. According to the cartoonist the troubles continued for a number of reasons:

1916- the Easter rising which was set up by a Fenian group and the Irish republican brotherhood because they decided that the war was a good opportunity to stage an armed uprising against the British. The rising started on Easter Monday when the nationalist's rebels seized power of the centre of Dublin. The British army executed the leaders and this has kept the catholics angry up till today and they still remember what happened that particular day.

1690- what happened on July 1st, William of orange's victory has remained a part of today's conflict. Because of that many modern Protestants still have a defensive and suspicious attitude to Catholics. The Protestants believe that William's victory at the battle of the Boyne saved Protestants from destruction at the hands of their catholic enemies.

I agree` with the cartoonist's interpretation as I think the people in Ireland have been fighting and suffering as part of a violent argument in Ireland's past and therefore they are trying to reliving it in different ways to gain freedom.

I