Catholic Grievances, Catholic Nationalism and Violence in Northern Ireland during the Civil Rights Period: A Reconsideration

Abstract

This paper considers the causes of thc violence that occurred in Northern Ireland from 1968 to early 1971; from the start of the campaign by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) until the opening of the campaign by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Two explanations have been offered for why violence took place during this period. The most popular explanation put forward by journalists, academics, commissions of inquiry, and accepted by British politicians and policymakers, is that violence was a response by the Catholic population to serious and systematic discrimination against them by the Protestants. The second view, put forward by the Protestants, and dismissed by almost everybody else, is that Catholic support for NICRA and the violence associated with the civil rights campaign reflected traditional nationalism. The paper is divided into four parts. The first section presents the conventional account of Catholic grievances. In the second section the economic and political situation of the Catholic minority is examined and it is found that the extent of discrimination against Catholics has been considerably exaggerated. In the third section it is shown that contrary to the popular view nationalism was not declining among the Catholic population and that there was a much greater association between nationalism and NICRA than is generally acknowledged. The fourth section presents a statistical test of the relationship between Catholic grievances, Catholic nationalism and the geographical distribution of violence.