Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland in terms of Housing and Employment
There has been a long history of violence, prejudice, and discrimination between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, particularly highlighted throughout the 1960s, when Catholics were discriminated against by the Protestant Stormont Government in both employment and housing. Hence, in order to understand in what ways and how much it occurred, both these areas must be investigated. Firstly, one must look at how the Catholics were discriminated against in terms of employment, and to what extent this occurred. In the public sector, Catholics suffered great difficulties being employed, as there appears to have been some bias towards employing Protestants, especially in senior levels of the civil service. For example, in a report by the Cameron Commission in 1969, it is stated, "[As of October 1968] In County Fermanagh, no senior council posts, (and relatively few others) were held by Catholics" and according to the Sunday Times, in the same county, in 1961 "322 of the [370] posts, including the top ones, were filled with Protestants. This shows how during the 1960s, the Catholics in Fermanagh did not have many jobs at a high level in the public sector. This is particularly interesting because the majority of people in Fermanagh were Catholics, hence highlighting the extent of their discrimination. The Sunday Times also wrote that in Derry "of 177 salaried employees,
