Talk:History of Northern Ireland

Gerrymandering

I'd like to debate this issue here, rather than making any alterations to the page as it stands.

Many historians and scholars, I think, have assumed that gerrymandering took place in Northern Ireland in local council elections. It is notable, of course, that Derry City had a seemingly disproportionate number of Unionist seats in comparison to the population. However, a similar accusation (so far as I'm aware) could perhaps have been made about Newry & Mourne in reverse.

Some experts appear to take a viewpoint that is not necessarily opposite to the idea of gerrymandering, but maybe more neutral. The suggestion is that gerrymandering is the manipulation of electoral boundaries in order to give advantage to the majority, whereas the electoral boundaries in Derry, and across Northern Ireland as a whole (apart from the changes made when the university seats were abolished) remained pretty much the same for forty or fifty years.

There is apparently some evidence to suggest that, after the issue was addressed by the Northern Irish government and later by Direct Rule ministers, the changes made to counteract the apparent bias in Derry actually, ironically, favoured the Unionist political parties. Still further evidence might suggest that Nationalist parties were over-represented in the council area in question and that the true 'victims' were the smaller (and often more moderate) political parties.

Now, I'm aware that many historians and published works do suggest clearly that gerrymandering took place. I'm also aware of, what they called in Wikipedia, Original Research - and I'm sure a similar policy exists here in CZ, and that's something I support and agree with. I've mentioned before, however, the phenomenon of systemic bias, and I think this might apply to many published works. So I'd like to examine the possibility that the 'accusation' of gerrymandering is too easy to assume, and suggest that the notions I've introduced here might be added in some way to the suggestion of gerrymandering in the article, in order to keep the article balanced.

On a slightly different issue, I note that the article currently suggests that there was "systematic discrimination in voting, housing and public resources", whereas the Rose Report specifically states (in relation to public housing housing) that there was no evidence found of systematic discrimination against Roman Catholics and that, in fact, the situation seemed to be the reverse - that public housing allocation was more generous to Roman Catholics.

Finally, the article suggests there was an "inadequacy of state funding for Catholic schools", and doesn't put the situation into context. The reader is left to assume, I feel, that this was the fault of the Northern Irish government (and therefore the Ulster Unionists) when in fact the Roman Catholic Church was almost solely to blame for any lack of resources in that area, by boycotting the state, refusing to cooperate with the education reforms committee, and by looking to Dublin for funding.

I welcome all and any opinions regarding the need (or lack of need) to make any changes with regard to the (three) points I have highlighted here. --Mal McKee 01:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)