The Protestant working class in Belfast: education and civic erosion – an alternative analysis

Abstract

This paper explores and reassesses the issues of social decline, educational underachievement and civic erosion in relation to the Protestant working class in Belfast. Prior to the ‘Troubles’ the Protestant working class in Belfast had at its heart a civic-mindedness which was in tune with working-class communities across the UK at the time. This civic-mindedness encouraged the growth of extended communities and placed an importance on church attendance and educational achievement; something which has been conveniently ignored in most analyses. Owing to population movements in Greater Belfast which followed the violence that followed the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971 Protestant church congregations dwindled and school attendances dropped significantly. The paper ultimately seeks to provide a ‘long view’ of the Protestant working-class experience in order to assist those who are concerned with the problems facing it in the current era.

Keywords:

• Belfast
• Troubles
• Protestant working class
• loyalism
• education
• churches
• youth subcultures
• violence
• civic-minded
• community
• white working class

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the peer reviewers for their helpful and illuminating comments which contributed to a stronger overall article. I would also like to thank all of the interviewees for giving so generously of their time. Particular thanks must go to Professor Graham Walker, Professor Pete Shirlow, Professor Jim McAuley, Professor Richard English, Dr Paul Burgess, Dr James Greer and Dawn Purvis for reading various drafts of this article and providing help and encouragement.

Notes

 1. Simms, Farewell to the Hammer, 107.

 2. Langhammer, ‘Cutting with the Grain’.

 3. Northern Ireland Assembly Committee for Education. Official Report (Hansard), 14 December 2011. http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/Assembly-Business/Official-Report/Meetings-of-Assembly-Committees-Minutes-of-Evidence/Committee-for-Education–-Educational-Disadvantage-and-the-Protestant-Working-Class-A-Call-to-Action/.

 4. Northern Ireland Assembly Official Report (Hansard), 31 May 2011. http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/record/reports2011/110531.htm#3.

 5. See Orr, New Loyalties, 5.

 6. ‘A Call to Action: Educational Disadvantage and the Protestant Working Class’ (2011). http://www.nicva.org/sites/default/files/A-Call-to-Action-FINAL-March2011_0.pdf.

 7. ‘A Call to Action: Educational Disadvantage and the Protestant Working Class’ (2011). http://www.nicva.org/sites/default/files/A-Call-to-Action-FINAL-March2011_0.pdf

 8. ‘A Call to Action: Educational Disadvantage and the Protestant Working Class’ (2011). http://www.nicva.org/sites/default/files/A-Call-to-Action-FINAL-March2011_0.pdf

 9. ‘A Call to Action: Educational Disadvantage and the Protestant Working Class’ (2011). http://www.nicva.org/sites/default/files/A-Call-to-Action-FINAL-March2011_0.pdf

10. See, for example, the interview with the UDA-linked Ulster Political Research Group's spokesperson Frankie Gallagher in Gallaher, After the Peace, 71. Gallagher states:

It isn't unlike any country in the world where if your father was a coppersmith or your father was a welder, you would want your son [to do the same]. I mean, look at the steel industry and all the rest of it. Or the motor industry. You know, you have six, seven generations of kids there. We were no different.

11. Howe, ‘Mad Dogs and Ulstermen’.

12. Walker, ‘Loyalist Culture, Unionist Politics’.

13. The loss of life, particularly among men from the UVF-linked 36th Ulster Division, at the Somme battle during the First World War had a major impact on the Protestant and unionist community and the manner in which it commemorates its war dead.

14. ‘Literature's Loose Cannon’, The Guardian, 23 March 2002.

15. Thompson, Over the Bridge.

16. Northern Ireland Assembly (Hansard), 14 May 1959.

17. Craig, The Belfast Anthology, 71.

18. McAuley and McCormack. ‘The Protestant Working Class in Northern Ireland since 1930 – A Problematic Relationship’, in Hutton and Stewart, Ireland's Histories, 118.

19. For a good contemporary example of the temperamental and often unfair nature of shipyard work in the 1960s see Sams and Simpson. ‘A Case Study of a Shipbuilding Redundancy in Northern Ireland’, 267–82.

20. See Edwards, ‘“Unionist Derry” is Ulster's Panama’, 365–6.

21. ‘A Call to Action’.

22. Langhammer, ‘Cutting with the Grain’.

23. See Boulton, The UVF, 137.

24. Devlin, ‘A Hard Labour’, 17.

25. McAuley, The Politics of Identity, 16.

26. Sinnerton, David Ervine, 17.

27. Hayes, Minority Verdict, 90.

28. Parker, Plays 2.

29. Parker, Plays.

30. Parker, ‘Dramatis Personae’.

31. Author interview with Ken Stanley, 2 April 2007.

32. Steele, ‘Whinlands, 1965–92’, 4.

33. Steele, ‘Whinlands, 1965–92’, 41

34. ‘Whinlands Field Centre (Annalong)’, pamphlet produced by school – date of publication unknown, possibly 1990.

35. ‘Whinlands Field Centre (Annalong)’, pamphlet produced by school – date of publication unknown, possibly 1990

36. Steele, ‘Whinlands, 1965–92’, 6.

37. ‘Unique Scheme at Annalong’, The Outlook, 4 March 1966.

38. Steele, ‘Whinlands, 1965–92’.

39. Features in the album Avalon Sunset (1989).

40. Features in the album No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986).

41. Features in the album Hymns to the Silence (1991).

42. Hayes, Minority Verdict, 90.

43. Dawe, ‘Finding the Language’, 15.

44. Ellis, The Beginning of the End, 78.

45. Ellis, The Beginning of the End, 72.

46. Author interview with Ken Stanley, 2 April 2007.

47. Author interview with Henry Sinnerton, 5 April 2007.

48. Author interview with Baroness May Blood, 15 August 2006.

49. Blood, Watch My Lips, 11.

50. Author interview with Baroness May Blood, 15 August 2006.

51. Walker, ‘The Fragmentation of Ulster Unionism’, in Busteed, Neal, and Tonge, Irish Protestant Identities, 367.

52. Reid had moved to London by the time the plays were broadcast.

53. Reid, ‘Growing Up in the Cradle of the Cherry-picker’, 30.

54. A Coming to Terms for Billy, BBC Television, 1984.

55. BBC Northern Ireland, 19 December 2006.

56. Author interview with John Crossan, 24 April 2008.

57. Author interview with John Crossan, 24 April 2008

58. Author interview with Ken Reid, UTV, 28 April 2008.

59. Author interview with Nelson McCausland, DUP, 5 July 2006.

60. Malone, ‘Schools Project in Community Relations’.

61. Malone, ‘Schools Project in Community Relations’, 2.

62. Author interview with John Crossan, 28 April 2008.

63. O'Neill, The Autobiography of Terence O'Neill.

64. Paulin, ‘Paisley's Progress’, in Paulin, Ireland and the English Crisis.

65. Boulton, The UVF.

66. Malone, ‘Schools Project in Community Relations’, 2.

67. Malone, ‘Schools Project in Community Relations’, 2

68. Grant, ‘Theatre – the Playwrights and their Plays’, in Carruthers and Douds, Stepping Stones, 37.

69. Malone, ‘Schools Project in Community Relations’, 3.

70. ‘Teddy Boys with Tartan’, Time, 29 May 1972.

71. Darby and Morris, Intimidation in Housing, 88.

72. Darby and Morris, Intimidation in Housing, 86.

73. News Letter, 10 August 1971.

74. Belfast Telegraph, 9 August 1971.

75. Belfast Telegraph, 10 August 1971.

76. FLIGHT .

77. FLIGHT

78. Darby and Morris, Intimidation in Housing, 39.

79. Darby and Morris, Intimidation in Housing, 40.

80. Bailey, ‘On the Oldpark, Belfast’, in Bailey, Acts of Union, 5.

81. Bailey, ‘On the Oldpark, Belfast’, in Bailey, Acts of Union, 25.

82. Bailey, ‘On the Oldpark, Belfast’, in Bailey, Acts of Union

83. Dillon and Lehane, Political Murder in Northern Ireland.

84. Author interview with Ken Reid, Ulster Television Political Correspondent, 28 April 2008.

85. Bruce, Paisley, 256.

86. Anderson, 14 May Days, 148.