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Northern Ireland issue with Protestants and Catholics
The conflict between Protestant and Catholic in Ireland
History of conflict in Ireland
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There is a famous 1961 film called West Side Story. In this film the “Sharks”, who are Puerto Rican immigrants battle the “Jets”, who are New Yorkers, for claim of New York City. Often erupting into violence, these two different culture groups despise each other simply because of the ignorance both have experienced. Through the rubble a love story emerges and eventually put aside their differences. This is however after several knife attacks, gunshots fired, deaths, and a hate filled mamba dance routine. Stories such as this about cultural differences are ones that one would think are far in the past. That as a society, we have moved past the differences accepting and embracing the differences that make each individual unique. But this is not the case, especially not in Northern Ireland during the 1960s till the 1980s. In Ireland, especially in Northern Ireland, religion has been the main divider between the Irish. The Catholics and Protestants have become forms of ethnicity in which the natives identify with. In John Conroy’s book, Belfast Diary, one sees an American journalist’s perspective on the conflict which hinders Ireland. The “democratic system” that was in place created an unstable power struggle only lending more fuel to the fire between these two groups. Strong examples of the unbalanced system are seen as John Conroy gives the reader access to his experience of “the Troubles” of Northern Ireland.
Not a unified and separate country until 1921, Northern Ireland has had cultural, financial, and economic that makes it stand affront from the rest of the Emerald Isles. With its close proximity to England and the immigration all through the 1600s of English and Scottish, Northern Ireland has become more anglicized th...
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...differences as an ending. Thousands have died regardless of the side they represented. As a reader, this eye witness account in the book brings to life the troubles in Northern Ireland. Walking the streets and living amongst the chaos shows the severity of the situation. This segregation still lives on today in Northern Ireland with no clear end in sight. But one can not expect a four hundred year long feud to end abruptly. Progress has been made in modern time but both sides need full dedication to end the divide. To put aside religion, politics and other blockades in order to truly find what is best for their nation. Just like the old Irish proverb, you've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. Forget what was in the past and by the elders so one can move on to a new united future whether it be united with Great Britain or Ireland.
Through the course of telling about his own life and his family’s hard times, McCourt touches upon the fighting that went on between the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and the toll this had on the Irish people. He also delved deeply into the issue of poverty among the Irish and the many ways they dealt with the hardship in their lives.
There is particular consideration given to the political climate in this story. It is incorporated with social and ethnic concerns that are prevalent. The story also addresses prejudice and the theme of ethnic stereotyping through his character development. O'Connor does not present a work that is riddled with Irish slurs or ethnic approximations. Instead, he attempts to provide an account that is both informative and accurate.
The Divided People of Ireland Ireland is a country with two very different peoples living there,
Ireland has a very conflicted history. Just when that history may seem to take a turn for the better, it seems that there is always another event to keep the trend of depression ongoing. The separation of the Protestant and Catholic Church would be the center of these events. However, the two different groups could potentially work together for the betterment of the nation. Through an analysis of why Protestants and Catholics split in the first place, disadvantages that Catholics would face in the coming years and also how these disadvantages were lifted, an argument will be developed in that there is perhaps the chance that they may end up working together in the future for the betterment of Ireland. Although these two groups would fight over the countless decades, they need to join into one entity if they wish to see a better future for Ireland.
To Begin, the first type of conflict going in the book, Shattered, is Human vs. Society. The individual involved is Ian, he is taking a stand and is fighting against society for all of the people living on the streets which have been treated like garbage. This conflict is due to poverty and the lack of respect for the people living on the streets. The society has no respect for people on the streets and consider them nothing other than garbage. This conflict relates to social justice because of the high poverty numbers, and injustice. Poverty is a very big social justice problem as it occurs almost everywhere in the world. I think the conflict would be resolved when Ian's voice reaches the government and they decide to take action. The government will need to stand up and stop the violence against poverty and lack of respect towards people with poverty. I think the conflict will be resolved with the use of government. The government should increase the taxes for the rich people and decrease the taxes for the poor people. The rich people w...
He integrates fairy tales and ethnology to point out the tales’ importance during “The Troubles” and other times of conflict in Ireland. Doing so, Ó Crualaoich builds off the ideas of Lauri Honko, a folklore and religion professor from Finland. According to Ó Crualaoich, Honko created a model of folklore steps that Ireland followed when bringing folklore back to unify Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Ó Crualaoich summarizes one of Honko’s ideas, “a significant shift in emphasis from the study of folklore materials as product of past tradition to a concern with process in the representation of shared identity in aesthetic and other functional modes of community life has taken place” (82). Folklorists in Ireland during times of conflict used Irish tales to bring Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland together, hoping to bring forward a shared tradition to calm the outraged populations. Although the countries still dispute, it is believed, at least by Ó Crualaoich, that Irish fairy tales brought them together and reduced conflicts between them. This chapter displays the strength of Irish fairy tales, a strength like that of no other tales. For Ireland, these tales reminded people of what life used to be like and made it possible to forget the battles at hand. This ties back to the ideas of Yeats,
First off, it is important to understand the political and social whereabouts of Northern Ireland from 1898 to gage the changes that have been made in policy. Before 1921, the North and South of Ireland were under British rule. When the government of Ireland Act 1920 partitioned the island of Ireland into two separate states, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, the North of Ireland remained under British rule while...
The Irish and British governments fought for many years over the ownership of Northern Ireland. Britain had main control over Northern Ireland, and Ireland did not think that was fair. Be...
To call “Mid-Term Break” a story of the death of a four year old is selling short the conflict presently going on in Heaney’s Northern Ireland. Though, he may not reside there now, its far reaching implications on those who once resided there are unimaginable. A very sad piece about a very controversial and heated conflict.
For countless generations, we as humans have inhabited this world. As a species we have made numerous scientific, cultural, and technological advances. As a species we have made it our goal to not only understand the world around us, but to also understand that which is within us. Some take this task seriously, and others pay little attention. Although as a species we truly have mad some fantastic advances, we have also experienced our fair share of shortcomings. We have spent the better part of our existence fighting, feuding, or going to war over a variety of different reasons. One of those reasons is culture. This paper aims to identify some of the preconceived stereotypes of a particular culture, in this case the Irish, and look in depth as to the source of those stereotypes and into reality of them.
This paper will investigate the culture of Ireland by taking a look at the five characteristics. Each characteristic will be allotted its own subsections. The first section will encompass the history to illuminate the connection of a country’s struggle and their learned culture. I will communicate the key aspects that connect an individual culture to the region of the world it inhabits in the second section. In the third section, the language and art of the land are discussed to draw lines to the symbols a culture is founded upon. The fourth section of the essay is dedicated to the characteristic of culture being made up of many components. This is illustrated by the ethnicity/racial, weather, terrain, and military breakdown of the island. The final section is commentary on the dynamic characteristic that interacting cultures learn, develop, and transform due to their shared contact and friction.
McCann et al. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994, 95-109).
Mac Einri, P. 1997. Some Recent Demographic Developments in Ireland. [Online] Available from: http://migration.ucc.ie/etudesirlandaises.htm [Accessed 7th May 2012]
During the twentieth century, Ireland was suffering through a time of economic hardship. “Economic growth was stagnant, unemployment was at a historic high and exceeded anywhere in the EU, except possibly Spain, and the state was one of the most indebted in the world” . Irish men and women who had received a formal education had immigrated to other nations due to the unavailability of jobs at home. This left Ireland in a state of further economic downfall, and the lack of skilled workers left Ireland stuck. The 1990’s were a turning point for Ireland. A rise in industry within the nation, as well as an increase in exports, led Ireland to become the “shining nation” in Europe. It became internationally linked with one of the biggest power nations, the United States, and international trade became Ireland’s new source for a booming economy. This brought the rise of what was known as the Celtic Tiger in Ireland.
Finally, the sixth journey ends in Northern Ireland. He makes the observation that this is the ideal place to conclude his project. Northern Ireland contains a recurrence of the themes that seemed so prevalent in the other journeys. In Ireland ethnicity, religion and politics are all bound into one expression or identity. These are also evident in the five previous studies. Is Michael Ignatieff's work relevant? The answer to this question is, yes it is. The issue is important. Nationalism presents itself as a phenomenon. The questions of why people need to retain a cultural identity and the way they go about preserving it is still unanswerable. Evermore unfathomable is the violence permeated through nationalistic expressions, which are "necessary" by the parties involved. The very existence of the enigma created by nationalism dictates the need to explore the subject in more depth. The situations in the book are not isolated events. Nationalism exists in every state all over the world. There is a dichotomy presented by Ignatieff between nationalism and federalism. He explains the political doctrine of nationalism by stating "(1)that the world's peoples are divided into nations, (2) that these nations should have the right of self-determination, and (3) that the full self-determination requires statehood." Federalism, though not a particular ideology, is a means of sharing political power among different peoples within a state. The various systems of government which fall under the definition of federalism are not problematic to the people; unless, of course, they are not completely legitimate.