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In Northern Ireland, there was divided loyalties and both the Catholics and the Protestants desired different things and had different religious beliefs. Both the Catholics and Protestants gave allegiance to different countries and had different point of views. The Protestants and the catholics were intolerant of one another. The Protestants who saw themselves as British, wanted to continue to be part of United Kingdom, and did not want a union with Republic of Ireland as they fear that the Catholic government would not tolerate them and their beliefs.
Most Protestants also saw themselves as British and thus were against the union. However in contrast, Catholics want Northern Ireland to reunite with republic of Ireland. They saw themselves as Irish and thus wanted the reunion. Their loyalty to different countries and their difference in political beliefs have caused the Protestants and the Catholics to be intolerant of each other and thus found it difficult to get along with each other and thus creating a conflict between both religions.
The second factor which contributed to the armed conflict was the unequal allocation of housing to the Catholics in Northern Ireland. Since Northern Ireland was mainly populated by the Protestants, little housing opportunities were given to the Catholics causing uneven allocation of housing and shortage of homes for the Catholics. In the country, subsidized public housing was usually allocated to Protestants first although a Catholic family may need it more urgently. Therefore Catholics delayed in getting their houses.
Since public housing was looked after by city councils which were mainly protestants who would give more benefits to their own people instead of the Catholics. The Protestant alsohave a higher quality of accommodation than Catholic families. Due to this, the Catholics became frustrated as there is a shortage of houses which meant they have to wait for many years to own a house. Thus they felt that provision of housing was unfair to them. They felt discriminated. And due to the frustration, tension arose and which created the conflict between both religions.
The third factor which contributed to the armed conflict is the lack of voting rights for the Catholics. Though the catholics may be equally capable as the Protestants, they were not given equal voting rights. The right to vote for the Catholics was a problem to them prior to 1968. Each household were given only two votes while companies had more votes depending on their size. Many companies were owned by Protestant so they ended up with more votes. Many voting districts were often drawn up to include large proportion of Protestant.
As the Protestants were richer and had bigger businesses, the Catholics lost out. At that time, only those who owned houses and businesses were entitled to vote in the elections. As many companies were owned by richer protestants, they had more votes and thus was unfair to the poorer catholics. The Catholics also had no voting districts near them thus they decided to protest against the voting system which created tension between the catholics and protestants. This gradually led to creation of conflict between the two religions due to the tension between them.