The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

The 1961 census gives the population of Derry City as 53, 744. Of these 36, 049 were Catholic and 17, 695 Protestant. The franchise stipulations cut this two-to-one Catholic ratio so heavily that only 14, 325 Catholics were entitled to vote. However, this still represented a sizeable majority over the 9, 235 Protestants who had the suffrage. But incredibly enough, this numerical superiority was turned into a minority on the council by an exercise in gerrymandering. The town was divided into three wards: North, Waterside and South. North contained 6, 711 voters, divided in the Protestants’ favour in a ratio of two to one. It returned eight representatives, all of them Unionists. Waterside had 5, 459 voters, again roughly divided in the Protestants’ favour by a majority of two to one. It returned four representatives, all Unionist. This left some 11, 390 voters penned into the South Ward, which returned eight representatives. Of these voters, 10, 130 were Catholics. Understandably, this ten-to-one majority returned a clean sweep of Catholic representatives. But when the Catholic South Ward’s eight seats were placed against North and Waterside’s combined return of twelve seats, the majority population of Catholic Derry was outvoted 12–8 and housing policy remained in Unionist hands. What this meant in practice was that in 1965 – while there were only a handful of unhoused Protestants – there were 2, 000 Catholic families on the city’s waiting lists. Of the 177 employees of Lo...