In investigation made by the Sunday times stated that it was believable that prejudiced anti-Catholics were among foremen or personnel managers who controlled employment. To back up this point the employment figures of the Belfast shipyard were stated in the final report. “Out of 10 000 workers, only 400 were Catholic.” The fact that this was printed in a British newspaper, which would have been expected to support the Unionists shoes actual proof of discrimination, as they did not try to cover it up.
Catholics did not only experience discrimination with regards to employment issues. Prejudiced attitudes and discrimination affected the allocation of council housing. It was believed that Catholics received worse accommodation than Protestants but were charged the same rent.
The Sunday Times Insight Team carried out an investigation into the allocation of housing. They stated… “The local councils put Protestants in better houses than Catholics, but charge the same rents. Also, where there is a shortage of council houses, most of the houses go to Protestant families. Catholic houses usually have less space than council houses where Protestants lived.” The report also tells us that in Dungannon, for identical rent, you received 42 square feet less space than on the mainly Catholic Ballmurphy Estate than you got on the exclusively Protestant Cunningham’s Estate. We can also tell than conditions in some of the Catholic populated houses were terrible from a photo of a backyard of a home in the Bogside area of Londonderry. As well as Protestants being more likely to receive council homes, which were larger and in better condition, they were more likely to receive them at all as councils favoured Protestants when allocating housing. There is actual proof that says proportionally, Protestants received more of the housing, especially if there was a shortage that we can see in the Sunday Times Insight Team’s report.
In 1963, Captain Terrance O’Neill became Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. He decided that attitudes towards Catholics should change. He tried to improve the housing conditions for Catholics and increase integration between Catholics and Protestants. In 1965, he promised to build 12 000 new houses a year, and intended for these new estates to be places where both Unionists and Nationalists should live together in peace. Unfortunately, it did not seem that the people in Northern Ireland were ready for this change. It seemed that Catholic families would not be welcomed into Protestant areas. A family named the Sands moved into an estate built to increase integration, but found themselves facing hostile Protestants who drove them back to the safety of a Catholic housing estate.
The local governments also discriminated against Catholics when it came to local government elections.
In past tine proportional representation was used t6o give Catholic minority some say in the local government of Northern Ireland. Under this system the number of politicians elected depended upon the number of votes cast for each party, instead of the number of votes cast for each candidate. This system led to Nationalists gaining 25 out of 80 councils in the 1920 council elections. The threat of Catholic control lead to the Unionists abolishing proportional representation voting in 1922.
A new system was set up and a commission was set up to draw boundaries for voting districts in local elections. The new system was known as the Gerrymander. The new system was designed to favour the Protestant minority. They did this by having more Protestant boundary commissioners, which drew boundaries, which favoured Protestants. They did this so that while the Catholics were the majority of the population they only got 8 councillors. The Protestants were the minority of the population but they got 12 councillors. Protestant control of government made it easier to discriminate against Catholics. Catholics would have found the new system unfair as many rich Protestants were given extra votes whereas many Catholics were disqualified from voting because they were either, sub-tenants, lodgers or living at with parents over the age of 21.
During the 60’s Martin Luther King the Black civil rights movement in the U.S. Using non-violent methods Black people managed to change laws which led them to be treated more fairly. This change in attitudes inspired the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland. In February 1967 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was formed. The NICRA also planned to use non-violent ways to obtain reforms and changes that would make life better and fairer for Catholics. The organisation encouraged homeless Catholics to squat newly built council houses as a form of protest. In March 1968 the Derry Housing Action Committee was formed.
The first NICRA march was in August 1968, from Coalisland to Dungannon. This march was to protest against discrimination in housing. Eamonn McCann, the leader of the Derry Housing Action Committee, was not believed to be a total believer in peaceful action. He was quoted saying ‘Our conscious, if unspoken strategy, was to provoke the police into over reaction and thus spark off mass reaction against the authorities’. The appearance of Civil Rights groups such as NICRA and The Derry Housing Action committee was bound to raise scepticism among unionists. The British government carried out a report into who were the true supporters of the NICRA. The Cameron report concluded that the NICRA had strong links with the IRA. ‘There is no doubt that the IRA has taken a close interest in the NICRA from its beginning’.
The NICRA carried on marching. On 5th October 1968 they marched in Derry. The route they proposed to take went through a Protestant part of Londonderry known as the diamond, where no Catholics had been allowed to march for almost twenty years. I think that the march did intend to provoke a large reaction, but whether it intended to be violent I cannot say, although the marchers must have been aware that there would have been a threat of violence marching through a Protestant area.
Although he march had been banned, it still went ahead. Police had blocked the route in order to not allow the Catholic march into the Protestant area.
From Eamonn McCann’s description of the day’s events, it would seem that the Royal Ulster Constabulary dealt with the marchers in a violent and reckless way. ‘Men, women and children were being clubbed to the ground’.
Evidence that leads me to believe that the RUC did deal with the march violently was a speech made my Captain Terrance O’Neill. He made ‘a liberal speech appealing for moderation and restraint’. The fact that the Prime Minister was not denying the violence of the police force shows that there is truth in Eamonn McCann’s description of the day’s events.
After the march the NICRA’s support grew, but they were worried that the violence would give them the wrong impression. To try and stop beliefs that the NICRA were a violent organisation they summarised their aims.
They wanted: The vote for everybody as in the rest of the United Kingdom.
The redrawing of electoral boundaries by an independent commission to ensure fair representation.
Laws against discrimination in employment at local government level.
A compulsory points system for housing that would insure fair allocation.
The repeal of the Special powers act.
The disbanding of the Ulster Special Constabulary.
The NICRA had now made their aims clear.
In January 1969 the ‘People’s Democracy’ led a civil rights march from Belfast to Londonderry. The group consisted of Students from Queen’s university in Belfast. The march intended to go through strongly Protestant areas. This was condemned by the NICRA. The march was ambushed at Burntollet Bridge. Violence broke out between marchers and Protestants. Bernadette Devlin, a student marching, said ‘From the lanes burst hordes of screaming people wielding planks of wood, bottles, iron crow bars, cudgels studded with nails and they waded into the march beating the hell out of everybody’. This violent march was the first of many events that year which led to troops being sent into Northern Ireland.
On the 28th April Terrance O’Neill resigned as Prime Minister, this was a blow to plans he had made for voting reform. The orange marches, which failed to be banned, caused several riots in several parts of Northern Ireland on the 12th and 13th August.
On the 12th august the battle of the Bogside broke out, causing terrible sectarian violence. After the Prime minister of the Irish Republic publicly criticised the Northern Ireland Government the British Army was sent onto the streets of Northern Ireland on August 14th.
Although it was ultimately the riots that took place in Northern Ireland that caused the need for British troops to be sent in, it must be remembered that these were caused by conflict, which had been going on for many years. Therefore the causes were both short and long term.
