Northern Ireland Troubles Sources Questions

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Question 1

Source A is an extract of text taken from the 'Sunday Times' news paper in 1961

this suggests that the source is fairly reliable as it is taken directly from a

broadsheet newspaper. The paper is English though so it may have a slightly 'Anti-

Catholic' bias.

The source says "Of 10,000 workers in a Belfast shipyard, the largest source of

employment in the city, just 400 are Catholics" Although this represents only a

fraction of the Employment Statistics for Ireland, this trend is repeated in other

places as well "Fermanagh County Council itself employed 370 people: 322 of the

posts, including top ones were filled by Protestants."

From this it could be inferred that the Catholics were discriminated against

ruthlessly. There are two sides to every argument though; the Source does not

contain enough evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Catholics

were being treated unfairly. All it actually says is that "Of seventy five bus drivers all

but seven were Protestant". It may be that the Protestants