Conflicts in Northern Ireland

Conflicts in Northern Ireland

The country of Ireland has suffered throughout a terrible history of

conflict, violence and brutality. These conflicts, however, were not

between Ireland and other countries; they were civil wars, and the

people of Ireland were fighting amongst themselves.

These civil disputes were caused by many different reasons, but the

main three were politics, religious beliefs and cultural choices. Many

significant events occurred because of the disagreements about these

matters, and these events kept the conflict alive and made the

citizens of Ireland more passionate about their beliefs. Every event

which arose caused its own troubles and created even more

consequences.

In July 1689, the first significant event in the Northern Ireland

civil conflict took place. This conflict was the Battle of the Boyne.

At this time, James II was the King of England. James was very

headstrong, he tended to ignore his parliament, and make his decisions

alone, but most importantly, James was Catholic. Many of the leading

protestant nobles in England rebelled against James’ ruling, and

eventually deposed him. They felt that by doing this, they were

protecting themselves and their liberty. As James daughter was a

protestant, she and her husband, William of Orange of the Netherlands,

were asked to rule England instead.

Meanwhile, James had fled to France, where Louis XIV was in reign. As

well as being a very close friend of James II, he was a bitter enemy

of William of Orange. Because of this, Louis supplies James with

troops, ships and weapons to help him overthrow William and regain his

throne.

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...de much worse, and although it isn’t as serious today, is still

present. More political groups were created, meaning more violence was

created as more and more people became involved with the protests. The

established political groups had stronger feelings and they became

more passionate about their beliefs and views. This, once again,

caused more violence. It also heightened the feeling of Protestant

rule over the Catholics in Northern Ireland, which started battles for

the Civil Rights of Catholics. This led to further violence and

conflicts.

For these reasons, I feel the partition of Ireland is a particularly

key events in the causes to Irelands conflict, with the greatest

consequences, as without it, many of the following events, such as

petrol bombs and ‘no-go’ areas being created, wouldn’t have taken

place.