Northern Ireland

The first 200 words of this essay...

Describe the Disadvantages faced by Catholics in Northern Ireland in the mid-1960s

Northern Ireland in the mid-1960s was a divided society. The Protestants and Catholics were segregated. Examples of this segregation are in education where Protestant children went to Protestant schools and Catholic children went to Catholic schools. Through this segregated schooling religious divisions between Protestants and Catholics were passed from one generation to the other. Housing was another example of segregation. Protestants lived near other Protestants and Catholics lived near other Catholics. Employment was also segregated. Many businesses and industries employed only Protestant or Catholics, for example the Bushmills whiskey distillery in County Antrim employed nearly all Protestants.

Catholics were disadvantaged by being treated unfairly in employment, Catholics always suspected anti-Catholic prejudice. Harland and Wolf shipyard in Belfast employed 10,000 workers, the biggest source of employment in the city, just 400 were Catholic. Fermanagh County Council employed 370 people, 322 jobs including the top ones were filled by Protestants. In Fermanagh there were 75 schools bus drivers and only 7 of them were Catholic. The total population of Fermanagh was more than half Catholic. In sport there was also segregation, for example at Linfield FC, a