I’m not sure if this post will be allowed as I’m speaking from my experience growing up as a Jew in Northern Ireland and as someone who worked on equality campaigns in Northern Ireland following the Good Friday Agreement rather than from a historical perspective.

In terms of numbers, the largest non Christian minority in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s were Jews, although numbers fell dramatically within this period so that at most we would be talking about a decrease from around 16000 people in the 1960s to around 300 people in the early 1990s. The 1970s saw an increase in numbers of Muslims and Hindus entering Northern Ireland, but again in small numbers, with Muslims rising to around 4000 individuals in the 1980s, and smaller numbers of Hindus. The 1980s also saw some immigration of Chinese from Hong Kong.

In Northern Ireland, you have to understand that the troubles fractured communities so that neighbourhoods that might have had some degree of mixing between Protestant and Catholic communities became largely Protestant only or Catholic only. The school system also is sectarian with Catholic schools under the auspices of the Catholic Church, and State schools, largely considered Protestant. A roundabout way of establishing which community someone belonged to would be to ask which school someone went to. This proxy applied to anyone from a non-Christian background, so one might be seen to be aligned with the community that was associated with the school one went to.

For Jews, some Ulster Protestants subscribed to “British Israelism”, that is to say that British people constituted one of the lost tribes of Israel. In the 1970s, weapons confiscated from the PLO and Hamas were sold by Israel via a South African arms dealer to the Loyalist UVF & UDA. The Republican IRA on the other hand established a relationship with Palestinians. The Jewish Community in Belfast had a high profile Queens Council who, although he was involved with cases against both Loyalists and Republicans, was seen as very much part of the British Establishment. The community was largely educated in state schools. These factors combined helped create an idea that the Jewish community was more British and Protestant. Having said that, the community’s stance was that they were neutral in relation to the politics. During the troubles, there was no significant increase in Anti Semitism. No Jewish person was particularly targeted by either faction.

The other religious communities, Muslims, Hindus, Chinese Buddhists, usually arrived into Northern Ireland in skilled middle class professions: lecturers, doctors, engineers, or latterly as shopkeepers. The middle class nature to some extent protected the communities as the Troubles progressed. The small numbers of people in these communities meant that the communities largely lay under the radar, and again I can think of no non Christian victim of the Troubles.

Having said that, some research conducted in the early 1990s among ethnic minorities in Northern Ireland indicated that all had found there had been discrimination in terms if access to housing and other services. Two thirds indicated they had suffered racist abuse. When asked about potential ceasefires, members of the communities expressed concern that it would mean greater exposure to violence for them. To some extent, this has proven to be true, with racist violence a significant problem in Northern Ireland since the ceasefires.