Catholic Youth and Violence during the Northern Ireland 'Troubles'.

RELN2310: Religion and Violence. P O'S

Catholic Youth and Violence during the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’.

Between 1969 and the Peace Agreement in 1998, a generation of Catholic children grew up surrounded by violence and death. Many were indoctrinated with a hate and fear of Protestants as soon as they could learn from their parents, other family members, relations and older neighbours. Others learned to hate as they personally experienced bigotry and violence at the hands of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the British army. Events like ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Derry in 1972, when the British army opened fire on innocent civil rights marchers and murdered fourteen people in cold blood, were ingrained in their memory and a part of their lives:
The most intense period of violence was in the first half of the 1970’s, and the geographical hot spots most affected during the course of the Troubles have been working class residential areas in the two main urban centres of Belfast and Derry and the rural areas that border the Republic of Ireland. (Gilligan,2006: 327).
Catholics were historically a marginalised, minority section of the population in Northern Ireland. Young Catholics had witnessed the lack of employment and decent housing opportunities for their families. They realised, that as Catholics, their own educational and employment opportunities were disadvantaged. This essay will explore the circumstances surrounding Catholic young people during the violence in Northern Ireland and argue that as Catholics, they were discriminated against because of their religion, interned without trial with devastating results and traumatised by the violence experienced as they were growing up.

Young Catholic children from a very early age became aware of their culture. They had a great love for traditional Irish music and instruments which many Protestants did not have. They played Irish sports, such as Gaelic football and hurling in sports clubs that were for Catholics only. Many Catholics retained a knowledge of the Irish language. History was an important aspect of Young Catholic’s lives and:
It is not just in matters of personal identity that the present is haunted by the past . In Northern Ireland, one feels history hovering over every institution. (Demerath, 2000: 131.)
From an early age they heard from their parents the disadvantages suffered by Catholics due to their religion. As they grew up they realised they lived in substandard housing in Catholic areas and did not mix with Protestants. Catholic families with four or five children were aware that they had less chance of being allocated a house than a single Protestant. Even Catholics who were allocated housing were unlikely to ever vote for a unionist politician:
for the Unionist Government the incentive was that non-householders could not vote so housing Catholics was not good business. (Munck, 1992:213).
Catholics lived in their own areas, they went to Catholic schools, young people socialised only with other Catholics. They played sports and music only with Catholics. Catholics shopped in their own areas and shopping areas and did not venture in to Protestant areas. There were some young Catholics who despite their proximity had never known or socialised with a Protestant. Their only knowledge and dealings with the Protestant community was through violence or the knowledge of violence between the two communities. The flags of the two communities although beside each other were different, the Catholics displaying the Tri-colour and the Protestants showing their allegiance to the crown by flying the Union Jack:
As a result, more than a generation of young people in Northern Ireland have been exposed to unchecked and pervasive sectarian prejudice that can be considered endemic to the region’. (Muldoon, 2004: 457)
As the 1960’s approached many young Catholics, including students, became interested in marching for civil rights for their communities.

When the ‘Civil Rights’ marches began in the late 1960’s children and young Catholics were aware of the reasons that their parents and neighbours were peacefully marching on the streets. The Catholics were demanding a stop to gerrymandering of votes, which gave Unionists an unfair majority, and a more pluralistic form of voting. This would balance Catholic votes more equitably and lessen the amount of Protestants being elected unfairly. The marchers also called for better housing and employment opportunities for Catholics. Tim Pat Coogan, (2002:81), describes how the marchers were attacked by Loyalist mobs armed with nails, bricks, stones, sticks, and petrol bombs. The police instead of protecting the marchers were filmed baton charging the marchers and attacking them. They were also filmed later chatting and smoking with the attackers, none of the perpetrators were arrested. Following the attacks on the marchers the police entered Catholic areas and sustained rioting began. All these actions were observed by young Catholics, and were an encouragement to them to join the older members of the community, in rioting and stone throwing against the British army and police in what they perceived as a threat to their neighbourhoods and lives. Richard Sosis and Candace S. Alcorta (2008: 14) claim that adolescence is a critical time for learning what is sacred and for becoming involved in terrorism. They also describe the plasticity of the adolescent’s brain and their heightened emotional reaction to events they witness and are exposed to, they also discuss the adolescent’s openness to indoctrination, and their intensity of emotions. These emotions tend to become mellow, as the adolescent grow older.

When thirteen Catholics were murdered and a further fourteen were shot and wounded in Derry on Sunday, 30th January 1972, the repercussions were catastrophic. The Catholics felt cornered, the British army supposedly in the province as peace keepers, were killing Catholics and lying about the circumstances. When ‘The Widgery report’ was released a few months after the massacre in Derry, Lord Widgery exonerated the British soldiers claiming that they had reacted when they came under fire from the marchers. Bishop Edward Daly, who appeared in the iconic press photographs and TV coverage of events on the day, while a young priest in the Bogside area where the killings took place, waving a white flag while helping to carry a fatally wounded marcher, states in his memoir that ‘Bloody Sunday’ caused large numbers of young people to join the Irish Republican Army (IRA), as their reaction to the violent shootings was so strong. (Daly, 2000:201). ‘Bloody Sunday’ was always a situation that would have prevented peace and the results of ‘The Saville Report’ published in June 2010 were vital if peace is ever to be fully restored in the Province. ‘The Saville Report’ exonerated all those killed and injured on that fateful day and laid the blame on the British Forces as it should have been from the beginning. Robert White (1989: 1277-1302) considers the reasons that people move from peaceful protest into violent action. He concludes that State repression in Northern Ireland was mainly used in working class areas and therefore violence spread throughout these areas. As many people from these areas were unemployed, they were available for rioting. White also discusses how State repression can become counterproductive and cause peaceful protest to turn to violence, as people realise peaceful protest is futile.

Interment was intended to curb persistent rioting in primarily Catholic neighbourhoods.

On August the 9th, Mr Brian Faulkner who was concurrently Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister of the Northern Ireland government, with the consent of Her Majesty’s Government and assistance of HM armed forces, reintroduced internment in the province’. (Spjut, 1986: 712).

It allowed for the arrest of any individual suspected of being an IRA member. Little or no evidence was needed. Young men, fathers and sons, brothers and cousins were ‘lifted’ in police swoops that terrorised families and neighbourhoods. In many cases the people arrested were innocent Catholics. They languished in prison, and many were never charged with, or found guilty of any offence. Arrests were usually made in the early hours of the morning, leading to chaos within households as British soldiers, without warning and heavily armed entered houses often arresting and taking away all males in the family including teenagers. This was all observed by younger children and created a greater barrier between Catholics and the British army. The IRA often helped these families with food and money as they had lost their breadwinners, and in the process won the support of young boys and girls. Internment led to huge anger among Catholics and stoked the fire of violence and anger in the Catholic communities and neighbourhoods. It was true that:

the Northern Ireland Government successfully apprehended and interned members of the IRA, but they also arrested and incarcerated without trial many persons who were not members of that organisation. (Spjut, 1986:716).

The damage to relations between Catholics and other sections of the community were put under great strain while internment lasted. The government had targeted their community with internment. The British army and the RUC had enforced the arrests with speed, no evidence and often harshly. The Protestant community agreed with internment, and wanted harsher measures put in place while at the same time there was little investigation of Protestant, Loyalist Paramilitaries taking place. There was a justifiable distrust of the RUC by Catholics and this was borne out by the fact that:

the RUC Special Branch tended to look for and find IRA conspiracies even when none existed. If this is correct and the evidence for the case is additionally weak and circumstantial, then the high number of internment orders issued by the Northern Ireland Government reflects biased sectarian judgements rather than simply bad operational assessments. (Spjut, 1986:737).

Community spirit and loyalty was strong within Catholic communities during the ‘troubles’. As long as young people obeyed the rules set down by the IRA they had a bond and a closeness within their community. Chris Gilligan, (2008:328), describes how the bonds in communities strengthened during the troubles. He claims that these bonds helped people to continue their actions against their enemies and also to cope with the resulting backlash from their actions. In large working class areas, whether a young Catholic was involved directly or not in violence, it was impossible for them to be unaffected by the conflict. They were regularly stopped and searched by the security forces. Children either lost a relative in the troubles or would have known a neighbour or school friend who had. They were aware of the dangers and sounds of rioting, or were involved directly in a riot. Cars and buildings blazed and their neighbourhood was enclosed by a barricade. Studies carried out involving children in Northern Ireland showed that:

Roman Catholic children reported more experience overall of conflict related events than their Protestant counterparts, in particular Catholic children reported more experience of bomb-scares and encountering soldiers on the streets. (Muldoon and Trew, 2000: 171).

Catholic children growing up in Northern Ireland had little chance of living a normal life. If they lived in a large working class area they had even less chance. Indoctrinated from an early age by the Catholic adults around them, they believed that they were victims in a society that looked after the needs of the Protestant community, to the detriment of their own rights and needs. They attended Catholic schools where they learned of a history plagued by British repression, and Protestant planters on Catholic land. They lived in Catholic neighbourhoods, and played with Catholic friends. As the troubles progressed they were constantly exposed to violence. Catholic children and young people, often late at night, knew that the door of their home could be smashed, the house ransacked and their older brothers or father ‘lifted’ and interned without trial. They experienced constant harassment on the streets by the security forces, and this increased their hatred and distrust of the British army and RUC. Bloody Sunday had a profound effect on young Catholics, and many who were not involved in the conflict joined the IRA when they saw the injustice of the innocent people killed during the march. The anger they experienced at the ‘Widgery Report’ would last a lifetime for many young
people, and destroy any semblance of trust they had for the British Government, British Armed Forces and the Police. This anger is destined to live on through future generations of Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Bibliography:
Coogan, T. P. (2002). The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace. New York: Palgrove.
Daly, E. (2000). Mister, Are You a Priest? Dublin: Four Courts Press.
Demerath III, N. J. (2000). The Rise of ‘Cultural Religion’ in European Christianity: Learning from Poland, Northern Ireland and Sweden. Social Compass 2000, 47 (1), 127-139.
Gilligan, C. (2006). Traumatised by Peace? A critique of five assumptions in the theory and practice of conflict related trauma policy in Northern Ireland. Policy and Politics, 34 (2), 325-345.
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Sosis, R. & Alcorta, C. S. (2008). Militants and Martyrs: Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion and Terrorism. In Rafe Sagarin & Terrence Taylor (Eds.), Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World (pp. 1-23). Berkley: University of California Press.
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The Saville Report (2010). Retrieved October 30, 2010, from http://report.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org/
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