Ulster was frozen in time. But in the 1960s, societies worldwide were stuck by shockwaves of protest. Not even Ulster could avoid seismic upheaval as the Catholic minority protested against long discrimination. In 1968, Ulster was a siege society where majority Protestants still kept a stranglehold over local power and public housing. That's the year Catholics poured out in mass peaceful protest, the start of 30 years of upheaval.
Catholics say they are discriminated against in jobs and in the allocation of public housing.
Society was so ghettoized, most Protestants knew virtually nothing about Catholics or their problems. Monica McWilliams is a leader of Ulster's Women's Coalition, also a peace negotiator. Her politics were forged in those '60s marches that mirrored the U.S. civil rights movement. In Catholic areas, the once dormant IRA sprung back into life, launching attacks on Protestant areas and on British troops. The old order reigned.