Northern Ireland OPPRESSION?

Question

How did protestants oppress the Catholics in northern ireland and what were there justifications?

Answer 1

In 1800 the Kingdom of Ireland merged into the United kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.  In the early 1900's Unionists (a primarily Protestant group) opposed home rule for Ireland and argued that Ireland should be run by Parliament in London.  In the 1920's Northern Ireland was created as separate from Ireland.  In general, Protestants consider themselves British and Catholics see themselves as Irish.

Answer 2

Just check out the Penal Laws. Of course there were no justifications at all. Similarly in the Republic a progrom was carried out v the protestant population. There was no justification for this either.

Answer 3

Since the partition of ireland in 1922, the provence of northern ireland was formed,it had a devolved government but this disolved by the brits in the 1970`s because of election rigging and it did not represent all of the people. northern ireland had a majority of protestant (60/40)people as opposed to the republic which hsa a 95/5 ratio.

Protestants held high positions in companies and refused to hire catholics or if they did they gave them the menial jobs that the protestants would not touch. The local town council elections were gerrymandered(rigged) to have all protestant boards, nowhere is this more evident than the city of derry which has a majority catholic population, this town council was all protestant with no catholics on the town council, the probability of this occuring would be miniscule but rigged elections were the reasons for the civil rights marches in derry and the one man one vote campaign. Carson, a protestant  politician once described northern ireland as a protestant state for a protestant people. it is unfair to brand all protestants in northern ireland in this bracket as there were many who supported the civil rights campaigns as there were many protestants in the republic who also supported the civil rights campaign such as former leader(taoiseach) Garret Fitzgerald.

There has never been any form of retribution towards the protestants in the republic  by the government, catholics and protestants have lived and worked together in equality. while ther are some small incidents this is attributed to personal issues and not a representation of the republic. The fact of the matter is that the fears of the protestant population in regards to how they would be treated by the people in the republic are unjustified as there is no history of mass discrimination towards the protestant people in the republic. After all we had a protestant president,(Douglas Hyde, who was also the first president and many more protestant politicians and leaders (taoiseach/prime minister) which were elected by catholics.

Answer 4

The main body of Protestants came to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster, which means the English sent a hugh amount of people to Ireland, Ulster, to remove the local Irish from the land and take over (backed by military voilence against the Irish). This was done with the intention of doing the same in all of Ireland. The plan failed, leaving those who 'settled' in Ulster feeling besieged.

This is the reason for the 'siege-mentality' northern Protestants say they have.

As the English made the laws in Ireland, Protestants were privilaged in many laws, whereas the Irish, mostly catholic, were denied land-ownership, inheritance, education, freedom of religion, voting rights, and justice.

After Ireland was partitioned, Protestants ran the government in the 6-counties (even though there was/is a significant Catholic population) and also ran the police, courts, social services, and most businesses.

The seige-mentality continued and led those in power to deny catholics voting rights (voting rights were based on property ownership, which Protestants dominated), deny housing, deny justice, and treat catholics as second-class citizens.