Support for Established Institutions, Cross-cutting and the Reaction of Political Moderates

Abstract

SIGNS of the impending crisis in Northern Ireland are scattered through the evidence reviewed in previous chapters. When interpreted contextually, these give strong indications of how and why a crisis developed. The class division underlying politics in Britain was in Belfast overlaid by religious tension and Unionist hegemony (Chapter 8). That hegemony was seen as irreversible under existing procedures because it was based on the solid support of a popular majority — the Protestants (Chapter 7). Party divisions carried over (although not as clear-cut cleavages) into political attitudes and preferences on issues (Chapter 9). Unionist councillors formed a socioeconomic elite who ran the Corporation as their personal machine, where non-Unionist representatives seemed not to belong (Chapters 4, 5, 10). Certainly a majority of Unionist adherents and councillors — seconded by the press — wished in 1966 to make conciliatory moves towards the Catholics (Chapters 9 and 11), which if carried through might have defused the imminent crisis.