The Reasons for the Outbreak of Violence in Northern Ireland in 1968

The Reasons for the Outbreak of Violence in Northern Ireland in 1968

Violence in Northern Irelandbroke out n 1968 because the events before

contributed to this.

Around 1920, most of the population lived normal lives but Protestants

and Catholics were segregated, but soon after, many Catholics rejected

the state of Northern Ireland, there was lots of discrimination

against Catholics in areas such as politics and unemployment, where

many Catholics were discriminated against by not getting well pad jobs

and given poor housing.

Since 1900, Ireland was close to civil war but a lot of Irish people

went off to World War I so the risk of civil war was reduced, many

people, both Catholic and Protestant went to fight.

In 1922 an Anglo-Irish treaty was created, there was peace between

Irelandand Englandfor a while, but not for long.

In the 1930s there was world wide economic depression, Catholics and

Protestants suffered greatly, they became even more violent towards

each other.

Between 1934 and 1937 there was big unemployment in Northern Ireland,

most of the jobs were took by Protestants, people would fight over

jobs and a lot of Catholics would have their businesses destroyed by

Protestants so they could either take over and not employ Catholics or

make their own business that they owned or worked for have more

success.

In 1948 the welfare state was introduced, all remaining links with the

British Empirewere broken with the IrishRepublic.

By the late 1960s there was a generation of well educated Catholics in

Northern Ireland, they were aware of their rights, were frustrated and

wanted to expose discrimination, they did not want to overthrow the

Northern Ireland state, instead they wanted to play a full role in it,

in particular the government. They wanted everything to be equal so

nothing stood in their way for being Catholic.

Te Northern IrelandCivil Rights Association (NICRA) was formed in

February 1967. A whole range of people joined it, from people from

trade unions to members of political parties, not jut disgruntled