Nevertheless, the majority of Protestants felt threatened by the emergence of the Civil Rights movement and did not feel that it should be allowed to progress. Moderate Protestants and hardliner Protestants felt threatened for different reasons.
Moderate Protestants mainly felt threatened in a social and economic sense. They saw the Civil Rights movement as a threat to their governing position in society and were worried that if the Catholics got equal civil rights, they would take over their jobs in the local government, schools, companies and institutions. However they did not think that the Civil Rights movement was a step towards a united Ireland because they thought that the Catholics liked what they gained from British rule, for example, free health care.
Some of the NICRA members were socialist and so wanted the wealth of Northern Ireland to be divided equally among everyone; however the moderate Protestants felt threatened that they would be the leading class and would have to share their social status and wealth with the Catholics. The main reason that the moderate Protestants felt threatened by was the fact that Catholics had children more quickly than Protestants did and so they would become the minority in Northern Ireland. Therefore, if Catholics had equal rights and were the majority in Northern Ireland, they would be given priority over housing, jobs, employment and in many other areas.
On the other hand, hardliner Protestants felt threatened in a political and religious sense. They thought that the Civil Rights movement was just a cover for republicanism and so felt threatened because they thought the Catholics were trying to reunite Northern Ireland with Ireland. In January 1969, Ian Paisley, a hardliner Protestant said, “The civil rights people don’t believe in civil rights at all, they’re just a bunch of republican rebels, that’s what they are.” They, like the moderate Protestants, felt threatened because they thought that Protestants would become a minority and soon there would be a ‘Rome Rule’. This meant that Northern Ireland would unite with the Republic of Ireland and would have to live under the Pope and follow Catholicism. Protestants felt that if a united Ireland came out, their own culture would be wiped out and they would have to follow the Catholics way of life.
Overall, both moderate and hardliner Protestants felt threatened by the emergence of the Civil Rights movement in the late 1960s; however both types feel threatened for different reasons.