Is There Sufficient Evidence in Sources D to J to Explain why The Troubles broke out in 1969?

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Is There Sufficient Evidence in Sources D to J to Explain why The Troubles broke out in 1969?

        The Troubles broke out in 1969, after countless years of conflict between Catholics and Protestants.  However it was triggered by the discrimination against the Catholics. Although Catholics had been discriminated against for many years previous, they were starting to become more confident, and were starting to cause unrest. I will now analyse the sources D to J and using my own knowledge of the causes of the troubles, I will try to determine whether or not there is sufficient evidence in the sources to explain the outbreak of the troubles.

Source D is a Roman Catholic’s description of her school days. Although she was a Catholic, the source is not religious, it is political, this shows when she tells us, when talking about the Irish patriot Vice-Principal Mother Benignus “She didn’t hate Protestants. But her view was that they weren’t Irish.” This informs us that it was not about the religion, it was just that because Protestants believe Ireland to be part of Britain, they couldn’t be truly Irish. The source also says, “We learned Irish history. The interpretations we were given were very different from Protestant history books.” This reinforces my information, that the education system was different for both Catholic and Protestant children. The Catholic schools refused to take their orders from the state, as they did not want the Protestant version of history. As Protestants controlled the state, the history textbooks were altered to portray the Protestant slant of history. So Catholic schools were often run by the Catholic Church. This tells us that even from an early age, the Catholic and Protestant children were segregated. They went to different schools, and learnt different versions of the same event, so this was sure to cause trouble in later life. As they would see themselves as different species, also as they learnt to different views of the same event arguments were sure to follow about history. So this early segregation helps us to understand one of the many reasons for the outbreak of the troubles, as they were sure despise each other, when they started to be forced to mix in later life.  Source D is a primary source, and was written by B Devlin, a civil rights activist, in her autobiography. It was released on the year the Troubles broke out. This helps us to understand one of the reasons for the outbreak of the Troubles, as it shows us that Catholics were no longer ready to accept the discrimination, and were going to speak out against the Unionist government. Source D also helps us to show us an example of the segregation between the Protestant and Catholic communities. However, it does not show us about many of the other reasons for the eruption of the Troubles, e.g. the Catholic frustration, at the realisation that there was nothing else that the Catholics could do, other that take up arms, as all the important people in the state were anti Catholic, so also were the authorities. This source is limited, in that, it only gives one person’s view on one particular school, so what happens in this school may not happen in any other, however it did. This source is quite useful.

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Source E, is a Protestant cartoon. It is an item of propaganda, which was being used to make all Protestant’s anti-Catholic. It is a visual source, from the nineteenth century, so it is a primary source. It portrays Erin (as a woman) bound in ropes by a Catholic priest. This cartoon, was intended to make Protestants think that the Catholic Church are trying to control Irish Catholics, and that the priests are the spearhead for everything Catholics do, and that if there was an independent Ireland, it would be controlled by the Catholic priests. This cartoon was released at the ...

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