The run up to conflict in Northern Ireland

[seafoid]

We have probably all experienced times when we had to keep the head down etc.But pre troubles things weren't too bad.30s and 40s were a lot worse,but I am increasingly of the view that sectarianism has and is being used to divide the working classes

Education must have been a driver of change. It is very hard to keep a caste system going when the Untouchables are smarter and generate more economic value than a lot of the Brahmins.  Catholics in the 30s and 40 had no choice but to do as they were told but free secondary education started sometime in the 60s and from then the system was doomed. That was when Down started winning all Irelands as well. Has to be linked to the greater sense of confidence amongst NI catholics. They even beat Kerry. Terence ONeill tried to straddle Orangeism and modernity and he just couldn't. 

http://virtualmethodist.blogspot.com/2009/09/coasters.html
You showed a sense of responsibility,
With subscriptions to worthwhile causes
And service in voluntary organisations;
And, anyhow, this did the business no harm,
No harm at all.
Relations were improving. A good
useful life. You coasted along.
You even had a friend of two of the other sort,
Coasting too: your ways ran parallel.
Their children and yours seldom met, though,
Being at different schools.
You visited each other, decent folk with a sense
Of humour. Introduced, even, to
One of their clergy. And then you smiled
In the looking-glass, admiring, a
Little moved by, your broadmindedness.
Your father would never have known
One of them. Come to think of it,
When you were young, your own home was never
Visited by one of the other sort.
Relations were improving. The annual processions
began to look rather like folk-festivals.
When that noisy preacher started,
he seemed old-fashioned, a survival.
Later you remarked on his vehemence,
a bit on the rough side.
But you said, admit, you said in the club,
'You know, there's something in what he says'.
And you who seldom had time to read a book,
what with reports and the colour-supplements,
denounced censorship.
And you who never had an adventurous thought
were positive that the church of the other sort
vetoes thought.
And you who simply put up with marriage
for the children's sake, deplored
the attitude of the other sort
to divorce.
You coasted along.
And all the time, though you never noticed,
The old lies festered;
the ignorant became more thoroughly infected;
there were gains, of course;
you never saw any go barefoot.
The government permanent, sustained
by the regular plebiscites of loyalty.
You always voted but never
put a sticker on your car;
a card in the window
would not have been seen from the street.
Faces changed on posters, names too, often,
but the same families, the same class of people.
A Minister once called you by your first name.
You coasted along
and the sores supperated and spread.
Now the fever is high and raging;
Who would have guessed it, coasting along?
The ignorant-sick thresh about in delirium
And tear at the scabs with dirty finger-nails.
The cloud of infection hangs over the city,
A quick change of wind and it
Might spill over the leafy suburbs.
You coasted along

[charlieTully]

The fact remains that in Portadown,as I presume was the case everywhere else, working class Catholics and Protestants lived together in the same shitty housing complexes,worked together in the same shitty low paid jobs etc,whereas the Catholic and Pritestant middle classes lived( and continued right through the troubles) to live in affluent tree lined avenues .

Thankfully neither I nor anyone in my family every experienced any change in the warm and cordial relationships we enjoyed with our Protestant friends and neighbours,either pre,during or post troubles.

its a great pity Robert Hamill isn't around to say something similar. It is not so long ago a Portadown woman had to get a police escort out of the Garvaghy road in order to get to hospital to give birth, but thankfully you enjoyed cordial relationships with the scum of Portadown, you are welcome to it.

[Rufus T Firefly]

Yes, no segregation and opposite religions mingled but in many cases when it came to July, Fenians took all sorts of abuse from neighbours who were civil enough to them the rest of the year.

A lot of truth in this, although people who I talked to would have described it more as a coldness, lack of conversation and being made to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

[seafoid]

We have probably all experienced times when we had to keep the head down etc.But pre troubles things weren't too bad.30s and 40s were a lot worse,but I am increasingly of the view that sectarianism has and is being used to divide the working classes

tony,
I think it has more to do with rationing scarce jobs and maintaining identity.

[T Fearon]

Charlie,I myself had to show a quick pair of heels on a few occasions to escape a hiding or worse in Portadown Town Centre,but you can't demonise a whole community due to the actions of some scumbags,in either community.Only last week a few Protestant teenagers got a bad kicking in Derry,does that mean that Protestants in general are treated as sub human by the local catholic nationalist community?

[seafoid]

Charlie,I myself had to show a quick pair of heels on a few occasions to escape a hiding or worse in Portadown Town Centre,but you can't demonise a whole community due to the actions of some scumbags,in either community.Only last week a few Protestant teenagers got a bad kicking in Derry,does that mean that Protestants in general are treated as sub human by the local catholic nationalist community?

They dont have to be demonised but the experiment of a Protestant State on the island  has been a complete failure.

[Harold Disgracey]

The fact remains that in Portadown,as I presume was the case everywhere else, working class Catholics and Protestants lived together in the same shitty housing complexes,worked together in the same shitty low paid jobs etc,whereas the Catholic and Pritestant middle classes lived( and continued right through the troubles) to live in affluent tree lined avenues .

Thankfully neither I nor anyone in my family every experienced any change in the warm and cordial relationships we enjoyed with our Protestant friends and neighbours,either pre,during or post troubles.

Certainly not the case for my family. Working class Protestants forced us out of Redmanville in 1972.

[T Fearon]

Harold I realise we had different experiences,but I'm old enough to remember the building of Churchill Park and Ballyoran Park which were mixed at the start,before the troubles really got underway (I lived two years in my early days in the heart of Killicomaine!). It was sad that people on both sides were driven out of mixed estates into in effect segregated areas.But I still don't think you can demonise entire communities.

[saffron sam2]

With such a measured upbringing, Tony, can you explain your total disdain for the false doctrines of the Protestant cults?

[Aaron Boone]

Was the Civil Rights Movement needed in the 60's then, as things were generally rosy. There must have been a trigger somewhere...one man one vote?

[Lar Naparka]

Was the Civil Rights Movement needed in the 60's then, as things were generally rosy. There must have been a trigger somewhere...one man one vote?

One man, one vote was the best known demand but Peoples' Democracy were also looking for a number of other things; the repeal of the Special Powers Act and the end of gerrymandering in local elections were two and there were one or two  more that I can't recall the details at the moment.
I know that there was widespread dissatisfaction over the way local houses were allocated and equality of employment (or something like that) was high on the agenda also.

[seafoid]

Was the Civil Rights Movement needed in the 60's then, as things were generally rosy. There must have been a trigger somewhere...one man one vote?

Civil rights in the US and Martin Luther King plus the general openness of the 60s plus education

[Rossfan]

Was the Civil Rights Movement needed in the 60's then, as things were generally rosy. There must have been a trigger somewhere...one man one vote?

Civil rights in the US and Martin Luther King plus the general openness of the 60s plus education

Was it the biased allocation of a Council house in Caledon Co Tyrone that lit the spark?

[seafoid]

Was the Civil Rights Movement needed in the 60's then, as things were generally rosy. There must have been a trigger somewhere...one man one vote?

Civil rights in the US and Martin Luther King plus the general openness of the 60s plus education

Was it the biased allocation of a Council house in Caledon Co Tyrone that lit the spark?

http://www.nicivilrights.org/category/caledon/

[T Fearon]

Civil rights in USA,student riots in Paris etc all contributed.I would say working class Protestants enjoyed marginal benefits over working class Catholics but rich Catholics had far greater lifestyles than working class Protestants. Education also played its part, the likes of Hume and Bernadette Devlin came from lowly backgrounds, and through education, saw how their forbears were used and abused by their paymasters.It has largely all been sorted now.A lot of what goes on between unionism and Sinn Fein is merely sham fighting.

To this day I still find it sometimes hard to understand, and reconcile hardline political unionism with the cordiality and gentleness even, of Protestants in general in ordinary life,(scumbags, of which there are plenty on both sides,excepted).As I've said before,I've been in rooms,away from cameras,where I've seen DUP Mayors welcome in Irish,visitors from Mayo.Portadown is twinned with Ballina,and many unionists,including DUP members, spend loads of time down there, and regard their Ballina counterparts as part of the family.