David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

houses, that the RUC officers had “failed
to take effective action.” Journalists at
the scene reported Loyalists going up to
police officers and asking them if they
could borrow their weapons. One of the
reasons the British Army had been
brought into Northern Ireland was to
serve as an impartial referee between
Protestant and Catholic. But England
was an overwhelmingly Protestant
country, so it seemed only natural to
Northern Ireland’s beleaguered
Catholics that the sympathies of the
soldiers would ultimately lie with the
Protestants. When a big Loyalist march
had run through Ballymurphy in the
Easter before the curfew, British