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

by Tim Pat Coogan

Currie was not normally resentful about being discriminated against. That was simply the way things were, like the fact that although he had given some of his children Irish names like Sean and Seamus, these would only be accepted for registration by the authorities in their English forms of John and James. There was no point in railing against such matters. One might as well feel aggrieved at the way that, approaching the July marching season, his Orange neighbours not only paraded ostentatiously with banner, fife and drum in commemoration of King William’s victory over the Catholics of yore, they also became distant and withdrawn from the Catholics of the day. They ceased to either speak or mingle with them until after the ‘twalfth’, when normal Irish friendly relationships would re-establish themselves for another year as though nothing had happened. If one elected to live in the Six Counties, rather than emigrate as so many were forced to, then one accepted the system.