Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

History

Ulster in 1921

see Ulster Unionism

1939-1969

The Great depression was hard on the economy, with unemployment reaching 30%. The war changed all that, as there was full employment, and agriculture was mobilized for the war effort as well. There was no conscription, but the rate of volunteering was high.

After the war the departure of Éire from the Commonwealth in 1949 brought constitutional assurance that Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK as long as a majority there so wished. The new Labour government in London worked well with the conservative Unionists in Belfast, for the Unionist Party welcomed the increased spending on welfare (which helped further differentiate it from Éire. Renewed economic growth helped ensure that the 1950s and early 1960s were Northern Ireland's most harmonious and promising years; its post-war experience contrasted starkly with the relative stagnation and isolation of the south. Unionist confidence led to the willingness of some party members to consider reform, as the political system had long been notoriously corrupt and inefficient. Meanwhile, the voting behaviour of the Catholic minority, its increasing political activism, and the collapse of the IRA campaign of 1956–62 all suggested that Catholics were becoming more reconciled to permanent partition, but they were still angry at the restricted local government franchise, gerrymandering, religious discrimination by government and business, and the inadequacy of state funding for Catholic schools.

Bibliography

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• Lalor, Brian. (ed), The Encyclopedia of Ireland (Gill & Macmillan, 2003) (ISBN 9780717130009)
• Ruckenstein, Lelia and O'Malley, James A. Everything Irish: The History, Literature, Art, Music, People, and Places of Ireland from A-Z. Ballantine, 2003. 496 pp.

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