Why did a civil rights movement start in Northern Ireland in the 1960s?

There had also been growing tension during the 1960s. There were many reasons that made the Catholics feel insecure in Northern Ireland during this time. Ireland was facing economic difficulties of high unemployment, with both Catholics and Protestants affected, but the Catholics were most affected. This was thanks to Catholics being the minority party in Northern Ireland. Plantation, Landowners and Factory owners were mainly Protestants, they were biased against Catholics, which made them more likely to employ fellow Protestants, rather than Catholics.

There was political tension. Catholics felt the political system was unfair. Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom so there was always a link to British rule. In local elections votes were based on owning property in Northern Ireland at that time there were few Catholics in that position. There were fixed council boundaries, that made it impossible for Catholics to get on to the councils. There was a lot of gerrymandering so the Protestants controlled the councils, most money and housing when to other Protestants rather than Catholics. Although there was the O'Neill's reform there were many people who were prejudiced against Catholics, examples of these would be the politician Ian Paisley, the UVF terrorism group and the RUC and the B Special action groups.

There was also tension through segregation. The border was put in, in 1921, which split the whole of Ireland up into two sections, Northern Ireland which had Protestants as the majority party and Southern Ireland, which had Catholics as the majority. This was done to try and give the Catholics their freedom but Protestants had the best land so it was hard to work the land left. Catholics in the North of Ireland felt insure and about being the minority party and always being discriminated by the Protestants. There was also segregation in education in Northern Ireland as there are different schools for Protestants and Catholics. Protestant councils gave extra money to Protestant schools, hospitals and housing. All segregation was due to the ignorance of the two religions and prejudice toward each other.

Annette Langley

1AJ

Question one.

Why did a civil rights movement start in Northern Ireland in the 1960s?

But there was on going tension due to British rule. Protestants believed that they were a part of Britain. There were many ways in which the Protestants tried to keep their link with Britain. Catholics always thought Britain was trying to take over their country, so they protested against the Protestants because they thought, it was the British trying to take over. For example Catholics would not join the RUC because it had a connection with Britain and they thought that it they joined it would be siding with the British.

There were many reasons why a civil rights movement was set up in the 1960s. It was mainly because they had many aims for their protesting, in their eyes it was a very successful form of demonstrating their wants and needs which was being used around the globe at that time.