disadvantages faced by catholics in Northern Ireland in the mid-1960s

Authors Avatar

Describe the disadvantages faced by the Catholics in Northern Ireland in the mid- 1960s.

During the 1960s Ireland was separated in North Ireland and Eire. The north was mainly Protestant and the south Catholic.  Still there was a great population of Catholics in Northern Ireland which cohabited with the Protestant community. The Protestants were a majority in the area and government although Roman Catholics formed 35-40% of the population. The government had a police force: the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) who was supposed to defend each of the citizens living within Northern Ireland.  This force was occasionally supported by the B-Specials – part time, auxiliary policemen who were allowed to carry arms, and who were mainly Protestants. On the other hand Catholics only formed 14.5% of all officers in the police force which wasn’t proportional to the amount of people living on the district.

After the actual partition of Ireland in 1922 a parliament in Northern Ireland was established. It had power over education, housing, local elections and policing. This made some citizens believe that Northern Ireland was a one party state and undemocratic because in this government most ministers were Protestant who gave some benefits to the Protestant districts making the Catholics annoyed. The problem was that changing the government was nearly impossible through voting; Housing allocation affected the voting system as homeowners and tenants had more votes than other people (like most Catholics) because the government was gerrymandering (fixing the “constituency borders” to ensure that they won the election). This meant that the area selected by them was mostly Protestant and the mostly-Catholic-living areas were left out to ensure a favourable election result. For example in Londonderry only 40% of the local government was from the Nationalist parties whilst 60% of the population was Catholic…

Join now!

Catholics were targets for protestant attacks from the RUC and b-specials who would attack them for no reason or when Catholics organised marches which had been totally banned previously; the problem was that Catholics had no police/government aid… letting businesses be in danger of boycott or attacks. Making the Catholic communities live insecure and in constant alert of a future attack.

The Catholic lifestyle was limited by sectarian behaviour. Jobs were normally determined by religion; if a Protestant and a Catholic applied for the same job, the Protestant would always get the job, no matter how many qualifications ...

This is a preview of the whole essay