A similar pattern of employment can be seen in Fermanagh County Council where 322 of 370 employees were Protestant, including most of those in the ‘top’ positions. Within the Education Authority, the most sought after jobs in Fermanagh were for school bus drivers because of the long rest and holidays; all but seven of these places out of 75 were given to Protestants. Such facts are made all the more astounding considering more than half of the population of Fermanagh County were actually Catholic.
Education was another area where Catholics faced discrimination. Dr McChuckey’s description of the results in Dungannon in 1964states “there were two secondary schools: “St.Patrick’s”, the Catholic institution, and the Protestant “Royal”, a fine school. But the difference between the ‘Royal’ and ‘St.Pat’s’ was that people there knew that its pupils were going to get jobs after they were educated, extract from ‘The Troubles’ by Tim Pat Cogan. “….you learned very quickly from the other children at school that Catholics couldn’t get jobs in a whole range of occupations.”
In the 1960’s the government built a new city called Craigavon in the county of Derry, but only built 5 Catholic schools, despite the fact that 48% of children in Northern Ireland were Catholics. This discouraged Catholics from moving there. This would cause them to move elsewhere where there was less prejudice and they could start building foundations. However this had a dreadful affect on the housing and living conditions. In some cases, Catholic families were bunched up, 3 families to a house.
Following a massive slum clearance effort in the post-war years, when N. Ireland was experiencing a genuine period of economic prosperity, Catholics believed that council houses were being unfairly allotted to Protestant families rather than on the basis of need. This also affected the voting system, as homeowners and tenants had more votes.
By the late 1960’s economic recession on the mainland was affecting N. Ireland badly. Unemployment rose dramatically and the slum clearance stopped. By 1967 the ‘Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association’ (NICRA) was formed in the midst of growing discontent. Amongst other things they made the serious claim that the N. Ireland government was fixing constituency borders (gerrymandering) in order to gain more votes for the government in elections. NICRA consisted of mainly Catholic members and sought to peacefully address the rapidly growing number of issues relating to inequality but they were disliked by hard-line Protestants and Unionists.
In Northern Ireland, the police force played a role in ensuring Unionist control. The Royal Ulster Constabulary recruited extra forces. The Police in Northern Ireland were 99.9% Protestant and extremely biased and violent towards Catholics, they would attack innocent Catholics for no reason. The 'B-Specials' were created - this was a Protestant unit within the police. They were called in by the Unionists, to act like a police force/army. Catholic marches were banned. Student demonstrations ended up in violence. They treated Catholic civilians harshly which increased hatred between the two religious groups. Only 14.5% of Catholics were in the police force but they formed 40% of Northern Ireland's population.
In conclusion there were many differences between Catholics and Protestants in the 1960s. Most of these differences were in opinion and in Politics. Nationalist politicians were always out numbered by Unionist politicians in large Nationalist areas. Therefore, Catholics could not have their views expressed and always lost out if it came to a majority vote. This unfair treatment halted progress to achieve peace in Northern Ireland and they are still trying to achieve peace to this day.
