ABSTRACT
Long secure since the closure of the Boundary Commission's work in the mid-1920s, Northern Ireland had settled into what its premier, Sir James Craig, described as 'a Protestant parliament and a Protestant state' by the 1930s. Usually only a footnote to Anglo-Irish relations before the war, IRA campaign would have an important bearing on the character of republican violence as it developed in 1970s. Ulster unionism was never the monolith some have depicted it as but was riven with various factions, as well as urban-rural, north-south, east-west, and social class rivalries. While this dividing line was not as clear as it later became it also disadvantaged Protestant unionist communities in the south and the west of the region. The housing crisis, to begin with, had been especially acute there and while post-war years had seen the development of a large estate, the Creggan, its slow progress combined with the demand for houses led people to take over abandoned military encampments.
