There were also many different political arguments that were staged on Londonderry. The main one was Austin Curries argument about the housing of Catholics. In Londonderry, at the time, Protestants were allocated houses more often then Catholics. Catholics were forced to live in slums as it shows in source D. There were campaigned for a ‘one man, one vote’ scheme to make it fair for all residents of Londonderry to vote. This meant that you did not need a house to vote. This would also put a stop to the gerrymandering that took place. This is when the election boundaries are manipulated to give undue influence to a party, in this case the unionists. This is shown in sources E and F. The boundaries were moved so that more Unionist councilors were elected then Nationalists. Thanks to this the local government had more power over Catholics.
There also was high unemployment and poverty. Both Catholics and Protestants were living in these conditions, but Protestants felt that only the Catholics were getting the media’s attention. And they felt that they should be getting better treatment from the loyalist government because they are loyal so they should be rewarded. However the loyalist government was failing to build new houses in the city because they were afraid that it might upset the traditional voting patterns in the city i.e. if more Catholics had houses then they would be able to vote and they would vote for a nationalist government making more nationalist councilors.
However there were times when the two communities came together and settled their differences. A good example of this is the University for Derry Campaign. This showed that the two Groups could get along with each other.
The University for Derry campaign was too formed because Northern Irelands second university was to be built in a small town called Colercime instead of the obvious choice of Londonderry. Colercime was chosen because it had a very high amount of Protestants living there and it would not change the ratio of Protestants to Catholics by that much, if catholic students went to study there. Whereas in Londonderry with the population too evenly matched it would change the population ratio into Catholics favour. Naturally the high majority Catholics would then vote for Nationalists and so the Unionists would loose their government seats.
The historical background of Londonderry is that there is a myth that some young boys closed the gates of the city when James II lay siege in 1689 and shut him out. These boys were known as ‘the apprentice boys’. Now every year there is a march known as the apprentice boys march. On ….when the apprentice boys were marching they passed a group of Catholics and tensions flared and the battle of the Bog side began. Both Catholics and Protestants started to street fight.
Another major riot was the Burntollet Bridge riot. It was sparked of when a group of peaceful civil rights campaigners were ambushed by a mob of Loyalist Protestant thugs just a few miles from Londonderry. This riot should have been controlled by the RUC that was to protect the nationalist marchers, but they did nothing. They RUC were actually seen siding with the ambushers.
After these marches the Catholics were starting to believe that the police couldn’t and wouldn’t protect them. They were completely vulnerable. So when the British army came they were very pleased.
So Londonderry became the centre of the Civil Right Movement because the Catholics there were very unimpressed with the treatment that they received, Londonderry was famous for its historical background and the two communities had shown that they could get along together as shown in the University for Derry campaign.
