Describe the disadvantages faced by Catholics in Northern Ireland in the mid-1960’s
Since the partition of 1921 the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland had been unable to live on equal terms together. The North became Northern Ireland and the south the Republic of Ireland. It was not really an event, for decades Britain had resisted Home rule but by 1919 the attitudes were altering. A majority of Northern Ireland were Protestants, the Catholics only made up 33% of the population, and the 66% left were Protestants. The Protestants wanted to remain a part of Britain but the Catholics wanted to become independent and separate form Ireland. This abhorrence between Catholics and Protestants resulted in the Catholics having a number of disadvantages. The tension steadily rose to a high in the 1960’s. Catholic hopes for strong Unionist opposition hindered better conditions in their lives. The mainly protestant police saw a wave of violence through clashes which erupted badly in 1968. This was the start to all the troubles, which are still experienced today.
The political disadvantages faced by Catholics were caused mainly by the structure of the elections. There were three types of elections throughout Northern Ireland. The first was a General Election where each adult, whether Catholic or Protestant had one vote each. Then there was the Stormont Election. The Stormont Parliament was meant to look after not only the interests of the Protestants but of the Catholics as well. But as the Protestants were a majority of the population, the Catholics were neglected. This election was where you could only have two votes if you owned a business or attended university-this included mostly just Protestants as Catholics did not own businesses due to education and most students were Protestant. Then possibly the most important election was the Council Election where you could only vote if your property was worth over £10(most Catholics didn’t have that money) or if you were a tenant of a public authority houses you were allowed to vote -but 2/3 of Protestants lived in these public authority houses- or if you owned a business or a company you were entitled to a second vote but most companies were owned by Protestants. This was important because any Catholic representing party would have some power in the Stormont Election and the General Elections, which would mean Catholics, had some say in the way the area was run. Because the Council Elections were so important the government used a deceiving tactic called Gerrymandering. When there were more Catholics than Protestants in one council election area, the government would move the borders so that the Protestants would be elected because they would then outnumber the Catholics. We can see that this happened in Londonderry (Derry) where there was 36,049 Catholics and only 17,695 Protestants. After the voting regulations had been applied 14,325 Catholics were entitled to a vote against only 9,235 Protestants. From the numbers given it should have been the Catholics who won control but because of the moving borders the Protestants got into power in that area and most other areas. More Protestant than Catholics became boundary commissioners, the Catholics refused. They had to draw up the boundaries of the voting districts. They drew boundaries, which favoured the Protestants. More Protestant councillors were elected. In addition there was a property vote, which also favoured Protestants. People who had a certain value of property would get a second vote; this favoured the Protestants because they were the ones most likely to have a property of high value. Even in areas where the Catholics were a majority, there was always Protestants voted. This was because Protestants had better jobs and they could
