Ireland

They were fed up because they wanted their own government and when William Gladstone became Prime Minister of England he made sure of it. Gladstone wanted to give the whole of Ireland a Government and Parliament set up in Dublin; this meant they would control all Irish MP's in Westminster. This caused a big impact on Northern Ireland because most of the population were Protestant which meant that a lot of the Government would be Catholic. The Protestants felt like they were being ruled by Catholics and didn't like it. However, the first Home Rule Bill was defeated in 1886

It seems that all, throughout history, Protestants and Catholics are always butting heads. Tensions were particularly high between Ireland and Britain with Ireland being Catholic and Britain Protestant. This religious discrepancy had a real effect on the Irish people, interfering with their Catholic tradition. The Irish people had longed for independence from the British for a long time; but, Britain really managed to agitate the Irish when they sent settlers from Britain and Scotland to settle in Northern Ireland. This agitation eventually grew into the Northern Ireland War, as the Protestants began to take control.

Even up to 1914 the Irish were unwilling to accept English domination. They were completely against it. They called themselves Nationalists as they were opponents to English rule. There are two types of Nationalists, Revolutionary Nationalists and Parliamentary Nationalists. The former believing that English rule could only be removed through violence.

After Partition, Catholics found that they were in the minority in the Protestant controlled North. From 1922 Catholics were on the receiving end of discrimination against them, increasing numbers of civil rights marches. By 1960s tension is on both sides, violence escalated, leading to the British Troops being sent in. The reason in why the British got involved is due to a long-term history as well as short term. Ireland has always been a catholic country, but Henry 8th, Elizabeth 1 and James 1, sent Protestant settlers to Ireland, Plantation.

Home rule is when a country who is ruled by another country is giving the ability to govern its self. However some people in Irelands Northern counties did not want home rule. They wanted to remain governed by Britain. So the people in the Northern Counties (Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone) remained under British rule while the Southern Counties formed the Republic of Ireland. Shortly after the formation of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland hostilities pushed these two countries to the brink of civil war.

Northern Ireland has been plagued by bloody and virtually ceaseless violence for the better part of the last hundred years. The conflict in Northern Ireland is a combination of religious strife between Catholics and Protestants, nationalism versus colonialism and a search for a true Irish identity that has been elusive since the colonization of Ireland in 1603. Republicans in Ireland seek a unified Ireland, one that is free from the imperialistic hands of the British crown. In hopes of achieving this goal, the Irish Republican Army has waged a violent and bloody campaign against both Protestant unionists in the North and the English themselves. From 1920 until 1998 the IRA methods of terror instilled fear in the people of Northern Ireland while the division within its population grew deeper.

Generally the people in Ulster remained strong to the English crown, these are called Unionists and wanted to stay part of the United Kingdom. The original Irish, almost all Catholics were called Nationalists and wanted to become independent with their own government. From the point when James II the Catholic king was defeated by William of Orange who was a Protestant in ... ... middle of paper ... ... did. The Catholics welcomed the forces into Northern Ireland as they knew they now had a force which would not only protect the Protestants. British Troops had not been asked for earlier, as the former Prime Minister O'Neill had expected the situation to resolve itself, Chichester-Clark saw the worst of the protests and found very little option but to call the British troops in to N. Ireland, at first the British troops were reluctant because they feared violence would reach Britain, but in the end they had little choice but to act.

Protestants also had fears, they would have to share there economy with the rest of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church would interfere in the running of the country. Also they maybe threatened with violence by the IRA to become a part of the republic of Ireland. If we delve deeper we come to the partition in 1920, Protestants remained part of the UK and the Roman Catholics who wanted independence. In Northern Ireland 66% of the population were Protestant and 34% were Roman Catholics. This partition had its roots in the 17th-century Ulster Plantation, which introduced Protestant settlers from England and Scotland into an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, establishing a Protestant control over the settlers and the native population in politics and society.

Yet despite this small number, the north and south of Ireland have been in bitter conflict with each other which has been going on for decades. This is mainly due to the main difference in the beliefs of the people. The two main groups in Ireland are the Republicans and Unionists. The Republicans/ Nationalist mostly made up of Catholics in the south belief that Ireland should be free of British rule and that the North and south of Ireland should be united within itself and have no connections with Britain. These people want to see an independent Ireland with its own laws, government and sense of ownership.

It aimed to unite Ireland and England and to dissolve the Irish Parliament into the English Parliament. The British Government now had to take responsibility for Ireland, but it was still treated as a separate country and Duke of Wellington later described it as "the enemy's country". The divides between the English and the Irish and the Catholics and the Protestants that had existed before were strengthened to an even greater degree after the Act of Union. This was because Irish Protestants in the North gained both economically and religiously from the Act as they still continued to control Ireland via the Protestant Ascendancy; therefore they became pro-union, and favoured the Act of Union. Whereas many Catholics in Ireland felt betrayed, because the Act of Union was not followed by Emancipation li... ... middle of paper ... ... North and South and to solve the Irish Question once and for all.