ABSTRACT
When Ireland threw off a good part of the English yoke in 1921 after well over three centuries of colonial rule, the English kept for themselves the six northern counties, the only areas in Ireland where the descendants of the original English colonists had a majority or a substantial presence.1 Most descendants of the colonists, who were largely Protestant, continued to keep the native Irish people, mainly Catholics,2 downtrodden in what had been their ancestors’ land.3 The Northern Catholic Irish suffered double the unemployment, generally could get only menial or low-ranking jobs, and lived in segregated neighborhoods in dilapidated houses or tenements. Well before 1921, the Protestants kept the best land for farming, leaving the rocky hill land for the Catholics.4 The Protestants controlled banking, industry, the police, all other parts of government and, except for the Catholic Church, almost every other institution in Northern Ireland society. Although the Catholic birth rate was much higher, the Protestant rulers counted on shutting out the Catholic Irish from decent jobs, housing and just about everything else to prod the Catholic young to emigrate.5 In any event, Protestant officials gerrymandered voting districts, ensuring that Catholics had only slightly more than token representation for their numbers.6 In many ways, the plight of the Catholic minority resembled that of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South.7
