The ethnic and religious divides in Norn Ireland are still all too evident if not to the extent they were in the times of the troubles before the Peace Process began to take effect. In the bad old days Penal Laws (some aimed against Protestant non-conformists) as well as Catholics ensured that they were savagely discriminated against religiously, politically and socially as being a threat to the Protestant (meaning Church of England/Ireland) ‘Ascendancy’ The Catholics were seen as the main threat especially in Norn Iron where the Protestant plantation of Ulster had taken hold with many Catholics ‘native Irish’ driven off the best land and barred from the best jobs and also prevented from pulling their weight in the running of the country being largely disenfranchised. One major oppression was the banning of places of RC worship and of the public display of the religion thus driving church- goers underground like the non- Moslems in Saudi Arabia today. People were forced to practice their faith in isolated areas away from the eyes of the ‘pollis’ or in informal house churches or even in back gardens. Old ‘Mass Rocks’ still abound-as in the Mournes or its foot hills-some requiring a couple of miles walk from the nearest habitations. But secret Masses were not just held in isolated areas. In King Street in Newcastle, about 200 yards from the Huttonian residence (and 400 yards from the old Police Barracks) there is an old crumbling house, now up for sale, where Masses used to be held in the back garden. A path, known as a ‘Mass Pad’ led up from the harbour to King Street and used by worshippers from what was a predominately Catholic area to go to their surreptitious devotions. It has recently been identified for what it was and a notice marks where it emerges into King Street-a piece of ‘forgotten’ Newcastle.
