Early years of Home RuleNorthern Ireland having received self-government within the United Kingdom, under the Government of Ireland Act was in some respects left to its own devices. The first years of the new autonomous region were marked by bitter violence, particularly in Belfast. The IRA was determined to oppose the partition of Ireland and the authorities created the (mainly ex-UVF) Ulster Special Constabulary to aid the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and introduced emergency powers to put down the IRA. Many died in political violence from 1920, which petered out after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922 and through 1923. The continuing violence created a climate of fear in the new region, and there was migration across the new border. As well as movement of Protestants from the Free State into Northern Ireland, some Catholics fled south, leaving some of those who remained feeling isolated. Despite the mixed religious affiliation of the old Royal Irish Constabulary and the transfer of many Catholic RIC police officers to the newly formed Royal Ulster Constabulary (1922), northern Catholics did not join the new force in great numbers. Many nationalists then came to view the new police force as sectarian, adding to their sense of alienation from the state. To 1965 Under successive Unionist Prime Ministers from Sir James Craig (later Lord Craigavon) onwards, the unionist establishment practised what is generally considered a policy of discrimination against the nationalist/Catholic minority. This pattern was firmly established in the case of local government,[12] where gerrymandered ward boundaries rigged local government elections to ensure unionist control of some local councils with nationalist majorities. In a number of cases, most prominently those of the Corporation of (Derry), Londonderry, Omagh Urban District, and Fermanagh County Council, ward boundaries were drawn to place as many Catholics as possible into wards with overwhelming nationalist majorities while other wards were created where unionists had small but secure majorities, maximising unionist representation. Voting arrangements which gave commercial companies multiple votes according to size, and which restricted the personal franchise to property owners, primary tenants and their spouses (which were ended in England in the 1940s) continued in Northern Ireland until 1969,[13] became increasingly resented. Disputes over local government gerrymandering were at the heart of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.[14] In addition, there was widespread discrimination in employment, particularly at senior levels of the public sector and in certain sectors of the economy, such as shipbuilding and heavy engineering. Emigration to seek employment was significantly more prevalent among the Catholic population. As a result, Northern Ireland's demography shifted further in favour of Protestants leaving their ascendancy seemingly impregnable by the late 1950s. The abolition of proportional representation in 1929 meant that the structure of party politics gave the Ulster Unionist Party a continual sizeable majority in the Parliament of Northern Ireland, leading to fifty years of one-party rule. While Nationalist parties continued to retain the same number of seats that they had under proportional representation, the Northern Ireland Labour Party and various smaller leftist Unionist groups were smothered, meaning that it proved impossible for any group to sustain a challenge to the Ulster Unionist Party from within the Unionist section of the population. In 1935, the worst violence since partition convulsed Belfast. After an Orange Order parade decided to return to the city centre through a Catholic area instead of its usual route; the resulting violence left nine people dead. Over 2,000 Catholics were forced to leave their homes across Northern Ireland.[15] Though disputed for decades, many leaders of unionism now admit that the Northern Ireland government in the period 1922–1972 was discriminatory, although prominent Democratic Unionist Party figures continue to deny it[ citation needed ]. One unionist leader, Nobel Peace Prize joint-winner, former UUP leader and First Minister of Northern Ireland David Trimble, described Northern Ireland as having been a "cold house for Catholics."[16] Despite this, Northern Ireland was relatively peaceful for most of the period from 1924 until the late 1960s, except for some brief flurries of IRA activity and the (Luftwaffe) Belfast blitz during the Second World War in 1941 and the so-called "Border Campaign" from 1956 to 1962. It found little support among the wider Catholic community – thanks, in part, to the economic prosperity of Northern Ireland, and the welfare benefits available there.[ citation needed ] However, many Catholics were resentful towards the state, and nationalist politics was sullen and defeatist. Meanwhile, the period saw an almost complete synthesis between the Ulster Unionist Party and the loyalist Orange Order, with even Catholic Unionists being excluded from any position of political or civil authority outside of a handful of Nationalist-controlled councils.[17] Throughout this time, although the Catholic birth rate remained higher than for Protestants, the Catholic proportion of the population declined, as poor economic prospects, especially west of the River Bann saw Catholics emigrate in disproportionate numbers. Nationalist political institutions declined, with the Nationalist party boycotting the Stormont Parliament for much of this period and its constituency organisations reducing to little more than shells. Sinn Féin was banned though operated through the Republican Clubs or similar vehicles. At various times the party stood and won elections on an abstentionist platform. Labour-based politics were weak in Northern Ireland in comparison with Britain.[ citation needed ] A small Northern Ireland Labour Party existed but suffered many splits to both nationalist and unionist factions.[ citation needed ]
|
