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

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Describe the disadvantages faced by the Catholics in Northern Ireland in the mid- 1960s? Catholics in Northern Ireland would obviously face disadvantages because the Catholics are living in a Protestant area and an area which wanted the British rule. The Protestants are not going to like the Catholics because they have been fighting against each other for many years. Catholics faced all sorts of disadvantages ranging from housing to politics so it was hard for them to live in Northern Ireland. If you are a Catholic it would be hard for you to get employed by a Protestant run company or business. A quote from Ben Walsh says that Harland and Wolff shipyard employed "10,000 workers, of whom only 400 were Catholics." This quote is from an educational book so it is believable and it is incredible because there are so few Catholics working in a company this big. This is understandable because the boss of Harland and Wolff might not want too many Catholics in case it caused trouble with the other 9600 Protestants. It could easily happen because there could be fights between the Catholic and Protestant workers and it could put the company's reputation down. People who invest in company's or who buy there products might not buy of them if they find out that they have Catholics working for them. ...read more.


For connection to the public sewer the figures were 78.9 per cent for Catholics households and 83.3 per cent for Protestant households." Even though most people are connected to water and the sewer once again Protestants have a higher percentage of people connected to both water and sewer. This is probably because of the people who aren't connected would not have been able to afford a house with these basic amenities or they could not afford to rent a house. To sum it up, basically there were a lot more Catholics than Protestants who did not have the right needs for there family and in Catholic households there was a lot more overcrowding. If there were problems including conflict the Royal Ulster Constabulary force would be called in who were nearly all Protestant. The RUC had "about six times as many Protestant officers as Catholics." This is ridiculous because this is basically a Protestant police force except for the tiny number of Catholics. The source is from Ben Walsh's textbook. There was an initial plan to have one third of the RUC to be Catholic but this was never achieved. This is unfair and could cause all sorts of arguments because if there needs to be a fair amount of Catholics and Protestants because if they are called up by ...read more.


The Catholics being in poverty all comes down to them not being able to be employed and them having an education which was not as good as the Protestants schools. It is outrageously unfair on the Catholics as it says in Ben Walsh's textbook that if you were rich and owned more than one house you could vote more than once. I am sure that the people on the polls would not really care if a Protestant came for there third vote but a Catholic would not have a chance of doing that. Therefore the votes were a complete joke because there was no fairness in elections. To sum it up the Catholics faced all sorts of disadvantages in Northern Ireland and it would have been tough to live there if you were a Catholic. If you were a Catholic in Northern Ireland the only solution to get out of the whole country and the republics problems would have been to emigrate which a lot of people did. Ireland was not a nice place to be and there was no investment from the outside world into companies there and there was so much unemployment both in Protestants and Catholics so Northern Ireland was not the place to be and especially for Catholics since if you were Catholic you would think that the whole country was against you as it probably was. ?? ?? ?? ?? David Drayton ...read more.

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