Word: belfasts
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...have been disarmed, and the hated Protestant police auxiliary -the notorious "B Specials"-has been disbanded. Yet Catholics claim they still have trouble getting available housing and jobs. Northern Ireland's unemployment rate is 71% of insured workers, -and most of those out of work are Catholic. The Belfast shipyards employ 10,000 workmen, and only 500 of them are Catholics...
Although there have been 53 known deaths, hundreds of injuries and countless bombings since mid-1969, most of the violence has so far been contained in the Catholic lower-class districts of Londonderry and Belfast. In the smaller towns and farmlands of Ulster, tucked among gentle green hills, it is hard to imagine that there has ever been anything but peace. Even in Belfast nearly 90% of the people have seen the rioting only on television as they sat before gas logs in their living rooms. Still, the atmosphere is poisoned, and physical reminders are everywhere...
...World War II England, the number of people admitted to mental hospitals actually went down slightly. But in Belfast, according to Dr. Morris Fraser, 29, there was no "banding together in the face of a common enemy. Riots, in contrast to wars, do not seem to benefit any type of psychiatric illness." Fraser's study did find, however, that, as in war, stress appears to be "maximal in areas under threat of upheaval or attack, rather than in those areas where there is active combat or direct risk to life and property." Thus a significant increase in mental disorders...
Among those in Belfast who did suffer mental problems, Dr. Hugh Alexander Lyons found that there were more women than men (162 to 55 in one sample). "The females may have been more vulnerable to the stress operating," he suggests. "Or the more active role adopted by men, such as vigilante duty in the area, may have had a protective effect." Both doctors carefully reported a general increase in minor or so-called "normal" anxiety, but a large increase in tranquilizer use appeared to compensate for that adequately...
Long-Term Problem. Fraser, who is in charge of child guidance at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, did sound one ominous note: long-term effects in children may be serious. In an as yet unpublished study, he reports on eight children. All had a previous history of being timid and nervous, and many of their parents had a "tendency to overreact to the threatening situation." In the wake of the riots, the children's condition grew markedly worse. All were affected by such varying symptoms as fainting spells, asthmatic attacks, and visible tension at the thought...