Has history had an impact on the way the present situation today is in Northern Ireland?
I feel that history has had an impact on the way the present situation is today in Northern Ireland
For centuries there has been conflict in Northern Ireland. The disagreement
between Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants still continues to this
day. In this assessment I am going to examine Civil Rights, the IRA, and the great famine.
Firstly before 1960 Catholics pursued peaceful methods, inspired by The
American Civil Rights Movement, the Northern Ireland civil rights
association began. From 1920 through to 1960 Catholics had campaigned for
fairer conditions and had expected change to come through the ballot box
(they did not know that their votes had been ignored).
The Police in Northern Ireland were 99.9% Protestant and extremely biased
and violent towards Catholics, they would attack innocent Catholics for no
reason whatsoever. The Police even led the Catholic marchers into a trap,
here they were met by violent Protestant Unionists, the outcome was
inevitable, violence. The 'B-Specials' were created - this was a unit within
the police that were 99.9% Protestant. They were called in by the
Unionists, to act like a police force/army. These too were violent to the
Catholics, Catholic marches were banned. Student demonstrations ended up in
violence. This angered the Catholics, they felt that if the Protestants
should get to march they why shouldn't they. Housing conditions were
appalling for Catholics, they marched and campaigned about their unfair
housing, yet again nothing was done. As the civil rights movement grew in
the U.S.A., Irish Catholics saw black protests in America erupting into
violence. The violent protest spread to Ireland. Student demonstrations all
over Europe were becoming violent, this too acted as inspiration for the
desperate Catholics. Education was now slightly fairer, Catholics were
allowed to go to university, but were not allowed jobs. As Eamonn McCann, a
leading member of the civil rights movement, remarked, "By the early 1960s
we could we could easily get a place at a university but couldn't get a job
as a lavatory cleaner at Derry guildhall. That made us angry"
This alone proves that the Catholics were becoming increasingly angered by
the lack of equal opportunity in Northern Ireland. The Catholic Irish were
beginning to lose faith and trust in their politicians, they felt that
O'Neill was not keeping his promise of a 'fairer deal for Catholics', they
were beginning to feel they needed to take the law into their own hands. As
tensions grew, segregation became more likely. In cities like Londonderry
and Belfast, "many people who lived in the 'wrong' area - that is Catholics
in Protestant areas and vice versa - were forced to leave their homes."
In these circumstances it was much easier for battle lines to be drawn.
