Thursday, January 10, 2008
Exodus: how Derry lost its Protestants…
Long awaited (on Slugger at least) last night’s programme on the mass migration of Protestant population from the west bank of Derry City is worth watching in full. The whole issue remains a matter of some controversy but, as the narrator says towards the end, the truth is probably nowhere near as cut and dried as either side quite believes.
It’s true, as some commenters have mentioned on previous threads on this subject, that population movements were common throughout the Troubles. Indeed, according to figures from the Housing Executive, only 10% of public housing is not segregated. This was certainly not the case before 1969.
What makes Derry remarkable is the vast numbers involved (14,000, down to less that 400), the virtual silence on the matter within wider public discourse and the deleterious impact it’s had on the civil life of the city. It’s also differs from other mass movements in that it was not all effected in one sudden move. The causes were both various and cumulative.
Next week we hope to have one of the producers for a live interview on Slugger.
Mick Fealty @ 10:11 AM
A fascinating insight into the Protestant psyche, I note the words ‘Perception’ and ‘Fear’ were used a lot to describe the oft-talked IRA ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ campaign and not ‘reality’. Some excruciatingly tenuous ‘evidence’ as the bombing of the courthouse which damaged a local Protestant church, the attacks on the ‘Security Forces’. It was laughable listening to a straight-face Gregory Campbell castigated Nationalists for creating a no-go area, for putting up barricades and without a hint of irony the following evening warmly talking up his role in manning barricades in the Fountain.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 10:34 AMI really wanted to watch this and forgot all about it. Doesn’t seem to be on the iPlayer. Shameful when you consider they have no trouble putting the Blame Game up there brave and quick.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 10:34 AMI would blame a lot of it on the our own “white flight” phenomenon as they experienced in the USA. You only have to look at large areas of south Belfast as an example. When the middle class and upwardly mobile Taigs started moving in the Prods started moving out.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 10:43 AM[Civility costs nothing - mods]
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 10:52 AMToo late! It was only post three but we managed to get both seemingly compulsory fictions into the Derry prod post.
“Ethnic Cleansing” and “White Flight” just won’t lie down will they?
Do you think we could continue the discussion without mentioning either fatuous analogies again?
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 10:56 AMPosted these thoughts on ‘Protestant migration’ on another thread but I still think there is some relevance hear.
In my own little town (97% ‘catholic’) in which I remmeber only one sectarian attack by Catholics on Protestants, a car was burnt in the gate way of the landlords house, he took out his gun, fired a few shots and that was that.
However the family across the river from us, I am not sure what sect they are are moving away now. As they share the same surname as many in the area and their land is quite crap so I doubt if they really are settlers/planters at all. They have never been attacked, never been intimidated. Yet they dont want to live there anymore.
I think it is because there is nothing for them to do. Their children must be lonely, they are good christan folk surrounded by the Irish and their strong and honest faith precludes them from mixing socially with people they cannot regard as Christian, especially since they are such a small minority.
But there is no sports outside of the GAA. No soccer pitch exists for ten miles in any direction. The state school closed many years ago. There is an orange hall hidden away at one corner of the parish, I dont know where but you can hear the defiant drum beating in the summer.
Some Protestant children have been known to take up the Gaelic football in their early teens but I can only presume that most Protestant parents would not want to see this.
In a sense, due to poor land conditions, the plantation has essentially failed in the area. Assimilation is of course not an option but it is a danger, the danger that a farmers son marries a devout Catholic woman is a possibilty, no matter how slim. Therefore people want to move to where they feel more at home, which is about people and culture, not land.
Is it not natural that people want to be in communities of like people, not people of a different and often despised culture, nor people of a religious faith which is regarded as anti-Christian.
Perhaps we are looking at these situations too negatively, perhaps repartition is now a real option? Green Republic? Orange Free State?
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/maps/map12.htm
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 11:07 AM“When the middle class and upwardly mobile Taigs started moving in the Prods started moving out.”
This “white flight” theory’s been posted a few times already.
Where in South Belfast are you talking about? Are you talking about gentrifying terraces along the river or Edwardian and Victorian villas around the Malone and Lisburn roads. In the case of the first working class displacement by the upwardly mobile is common to all cities in these islands. In the case of the second gow do you know. Did prods run away leaving their houses vacant and the coronation crockery still on the draining board?
I live in Bangor; an area quite like South Belfast and (in West Bangor at least) with plenty of middle class catholics. I haven’t noticed the anxious prods hammering up the for sale signs.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 11:11 AMIs it just me or is the gloating nature of post 6 enough to make any one, regardless of “sect”, move as far as possible from Mr Fartlighter?
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 11:27 AMBonarlaw,
Gloating? I am surprised, tried to be as neutral as possible, please explain.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 11:29 AM>What makes Derry remarkable is the vast numbers involved (14,000, down to less that 400),
Weren’t there similar number of people moving in Belfast throughout the troubles? More, I would bet…
>the virtual silence on the matter within wider public discourse
Rubbish
>and the deleterious impact it’s had on the civil life of the city.
Indisputable. Although I would say that the deleterious impact of population movement on the civil life of Belfast during the troubles was equally great if not greater.
>It’s also differs from other mass movements in that it was not all effected in one sudden move.
Also nonsense.
This was an excellent documentary because the Protestants were allowed to speak without interruption, “whatabout...”, closed questions etc. I found it uncomfortable watching, but ultimately cathartic. Perhaps one day Belfast will face its demons too.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 11:30 AMBonarlaw,
Apologies, I have misused the word ‘sect’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sect
Church is of course more apropriate.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 11:42 AM“This was an excellent documentary because the Protestants were allowed to speak without interruption, “whatabout...”, closed questions etc. I found it uncomfortable watching, but ultimately cathartic. Perhaps one day Belfast will face its demons too.”
Another point which gives the lie to the “white flight” / when the shoe’s on the other foot prods run away nonsense, is the conclusion at the end of the programme that now that people can attend church or work without threat and (just as, if not more importantly) there is a real sense of optimism rather than recrimination in the city, prods are returning to the Cityside; at least in spirit, if not yet significantly in mortgage applications.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 11:49 AMBriso,
We’ve been round the houses on this before. I guess you might argue that totalling the numbers up for the whole of the west bank is what makes it so large. Figures for places like Suffolk, New Barnsley and Willowfield are available, but none for Belfast over all.
But I’ve yet to hear comparitive figures that make the Derry situaion any the less shocking.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 11:52 AMMark Fartlighter
Get with the times. Prods have been here for 400+ years and there’s been that much intermixing in that time that simplistic terms like natives and settlers are ridiculous.
“Surrounded by the Irish” - FFS you make them sound like aliens just arrived to the emerald isle. We are all the same people but may differ politically/religiously/culturally.
Jaffa
“prods are returning to the Cityside; at least in spirit”
Classic line. A few retired RUC men perhaps can now attend their old church without fear of getting shot. The only sign of prod regeneration in the cityside is if they start returning, logically to the Fountain area. I’m not local so don’t know if this is happening but the impression I get is that the Fountain is a community in decline.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:02 PMMo,
Just trying to understand people.
The vast vast majority of unionist people reject the label Irish outright, I try and respect that.
“Prods have been here for 400+ years and there’s been that much intermixing in that time that simplistic terms like natives and settlers are ridiculous”.
I think my reference to the people’s surname was a reference to this.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:08 PMThis was a very one sided and partial programme from the BBC. Right down to using ‘Londonderry’ throughout, the makers lost no opportunity to emphasise that this was a Protestant Programme for a Protestant population. We were presented with a catalogue of murders by IRA and INLA - yet we only had a few whispered mentions of the occasional ‘alleged’ killing by loyalists. (You were left unsure whether anybody was actually killed by loyalists).
As for white flight - try Dunmurry and Finaghy if you want to find places where Protestants started moving en masse as soon as Catholics moved in....
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:08 PM“The only sign of prod regeneration in the cityside is if they start returning, logically to the Fountain area.”
I don’t know the Fountain area but the hollowing out of old public housing areas is commonplace. I’d look for your Cityside prods in new private housing developments rather than the Fountain. You might find them living with their Catholic partners.
We’re knocking down the Breezemount estate in Bangor. It’s not because the prods ran away. It’s because they moved.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:11 PMDunmurray, Finaghy, Suffolk to name a few.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:19 PMMark Fartlighter
Fair enough, perhaps I jumped down your throat abit when you were well meaning. Just some of your language, talking of settlers, the plantation etc etc I thought you were using very republican language, you know the true Irish vs these newcomers taking our land kinda thing.
I would imagine if the family in question are a well to do Christian family, they could well for example send their kids to grammar school. Perhaps the son is into his rugby and runs about in his Ireland top. Not all Prods reject the Irish label.
Better in my humble opinion to use terms like unionist community or Protestant community than Irish and non-Irish communities.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:22 PMDunmurray?
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:23 PMMark Fartlighter
The vast vast majority of unionist people reject the label Irish outright ...
Have you any evidence for this? I know some unionists who reject outright the label “Irish”, but they are a (small) minority of all the unionists whom I know.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:25 PM“this was a Protestant Programme for a Protestant population.”
It was part of a three program series and dealing with a particular protestant demographic phenomenon. In case you missed it the question was why prods thought they’d moved out of the cityside - not why catholics thought they did.
It included people who didn’t want to move but did so for family, people who felt little personal threat but weren’t prepared to compromise their children’s lives and people who said thay’d had no problem with Catholic neighbours but were afraid of the enthusiasms of republicans. It also talked about the Catholic neighbours who’d cleared up a squatted protestant’s house so that she could return.
Should there have been an interview with Martina Anderson so that she could tell us why protestants moved?
There were a few shots of Walker’s memorial. Walker was a Governor during the seige. Not a pleasant man by all accounts - Derek Lundy has fun things to say about him in “Men that God made mad”, but was the demolition of this by the IRA in 1973 intended to encourage prods to stay?
How do I “try” Dunmurray and Finaghy? “En masse” and “as soon as” suggest dramatic newsworthy stories. I can just picture all the prods trembling at the sight of their new neighbours and throwing a few valued posessions into the car as they plead with their East Belfast cousins for a room for a few days. Got any numbers?
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:27 PMMark Fartlighter,
Is your post some sort of joke? Sounds like something that would have been written in the 1600’s.
In fact for a moment I thought it had been and I was looking for the link.
“Good Christian folk surrounded by the Irish”
Wow, those evil anti-Christian Irish!!!
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:29 PMMo,
Unfortunately, I know very little about them. But it would be very difficult to be into Rugby when the nearest Rugby pitch is 30 miles away. All I am saying is that simple things like that are important, maybe the lad wants to play Rugby?
Maybe they do want to send them to a grammar school. That in itself would be difficult, there are no direct buses to anywhere which would have a protestant grammar school.
It is relevant that smaller state schools may not be able to provide as full an education as desired.
My point is in truth, that violence and intimidation are not always the root causes of migration, this is based on my own observations.
And of course, generally speaking, talk of planter and native is irrelevant, however, in some circumstances there is a resonance to it if some people find themselves on or beyond ‘the frontier’.
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:33 PM“when the nearest Rugby pitch is 30 miles away”
Crikey 30 miles! Portpatrick’s closer to my house than that. Where were you brought up? Inishmore?
Posted by on Jan 10, 2008 @ 12:39 PM
