Ireland Courework

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Jainee Shah 11P

Why did Protestants feel threatened by the emergence of the Civil Rights movement in the late 1960s?

        The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was founded in 1967 The main aims of NICRA were that its members wanted all citizens of Northern Ireland to have equal rights and they wanted to end sectarian discrimination in employment, education, housing and other areas. The Civil Rights movement was supported by the Catholics and Socialists; however some Protestants supported it as well. This was to end all forms of discrimination and segregation.

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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 ...

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