Topic has moved on, but after typing it out I may as well post it. It rambles a bit towards the end, so fair warning.
As I said, indeed they were. Police brutality (the police treated Catholic and Protestant roughly the same) was just simple brutality. Plus, at one point 20% of the police force was Catholic, though this went down over time by around 5%. Only householders could vote, and therefore council houses were given to Protestants over Catholics. Still, they weren't prohibited from voting. Or so my GCSE history states, I suppose there's probably more depth to it than that.
A quote from wikipedia states: In 2007, 36% of the population defined themselves as Unionist, 24% as Nationalist and 40% defined themselves as neither.[41] According to a 2009 opinion poll, 69% express longterm preference of the maintenance of Northern Ireland's membership of the United Kingdom (either directly ruled or with devolved government), while 21% express a preference for membership of a united Ireland.[42] This discrepancy can be explained by the overwhelming preference among Protestants to remain a part of the UK (91%), while Catholic preferences are spread across a number of solutions to the constitutional question including remaining a part of the UK (47%), a united Ireland (40%), Northern Ireland becoming an independent state (5%), and those who "don't know" (5%)
So, as you can see, the overwhelming majority of people to this day want to remain part of the U.K., Catholic and Protestant.
Of course, Britain was terrible to the Irish. Before that, the Irish were terrible to the British. Before that....etc. It's not a blame game. Both sides did bad things. One side was against the democratic decision. One side were terrorists. Regardless, there were Protestant paramilitaries set up to counteract Sinn Fein/IRA (at that time one and the same, the IRA branch now having mainly dried out)
Really, the Catholics weren't equal citizens for a while, and this was terrible. A violent display is understandable. But sustained violence? Murdering of civilians? Murdering of off-duty soldiers? Bombs in the schools? My dad, as an only son (and thus only heir to the farm) was worried about going outside, because the IRA were known to kill only sons in order for Catholic buyers to purchase the land. My own mother, but for a faulty bomb, would be dead. Enough is enough when you stop fighting armed forces for attention, and start killing people at memorials, killing those wearing poppies. Have you heard the story of off duty soldiers driving past an IRA funeral by accident, pulled out of their cars and killed? Stopping buses full of workers and when the masked terrorists with guns demand that the only catholic in the bus be brought forward, they stood in their way. Then it turned out they were saving the Catholic and killing the Protestants.
It stopped being about rights and being about religion.
That kinda turned into a rant. Whayda get me started on the one topic absolutely certain to make me mad.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9761264 times)