The Irish History

The stripping of political and human rights by the Protestants and the economic burden, left on the Catholics fuelled the anger of the Native Irish. It can be argued that the Northern Ireland War was the result of Catholic hostility towards their Protestant arrivals. Throughout the history of Ireland, the Irish have been forced to defend their territory, but at times they did it in ways that was most violent. Hostility of the Catholics occurred in the massacre of the Protestant settlers during the early 1600s, which resulted in many Protestant deaths. During the war, the IRA (Irish Republican Army) also did not help their case when they began acts of terrorism on the Protestant population.

Ireland, fed up with the Britain’s appalling leadership, asked for division from the United Kingdom. An obvious disagreement stirred up tension which led to multiple rebellions like Easter Rising. Continuous struggles for freedom built passion and nationalism for the Irish people. With all the past turmoil building up, Ireland commenced a war for their freedom. Although an often forgotten war, The Irish War of Independence resulted in rebellions, bloodbaths, and a major split in a nation.

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. There was a lot of hatred in Northern Ireland that had built up over hundreds of years, this tension had developed slowly and the battle of the Bogside, which was the immediate reason forces were sent into N. Ireland, was with the peak of the anger and friction between all the sides.

Northern Ireland has suffered much political violence since 1968. The problems are between the Protestants or Unionists who want N.Ireland to remain part of the UK, and the Catholics or Nationalists who want an independent united Ireland. The Catholics are outnumbered in N.Ireland so were discriminated against and so had a general dislike for protestants, to get their views heard they set up the IRA. This is a terrorist organisation that uses violence to protest for what they want; they have killed hundreds of soldiers, police and civilians. Protestants have also set up terror gangs and carried out many killings.

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.

Unlike the Treaty of 1921 or the peace process in the 1970's, recent efforts stripe the IRA of it's reasoning in using violence. . Even the Real IRA, which split from the IRA following the Belfast Agreement lack public support when they conduct acts of violence against the British or unionists. Because the Belfast Agreement satisfies unionists for the most part, there has been a decline in sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. As a result the Catholic need for protection by the IRA from Protestants is no longer as relevant.

After Cromwell’s death the troubles in Ireland continued when a new King James II was appointed. James II was a Catholic and wanted to ... ... middle of paper ... ... the violence. However, in my opinion the main factor which lead to the British army being sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 were the government policies such as gerrymandering which caused the Catholic community to be given poor housing and jobs, which in turn caused them to protest about the treatment they were receiving from local councils which would end up in violence which was mostly started by the Protestants and then this violence would be dealt with by a biased police force who could not keep the peace and would just end up contributing to the violence by taking the side of the Protestants. So in conclusion it is my opinion that the government policies in Northern Ireland after 1922 and the partition of Ireland is a long-term problem that resulted in the deployment of troops by the British government in 1969.

1. Anglo Protestants often oppressed the Irish because they saw them as burdens to their growing society. At first, the Irish were discriminated through harsh stereotypes that defamed them immensely. Most of the claims that the superior race made were false, but the still ended up branding the immigrants for years. Anglos who participated in stereotyping also ended up committing hate crimes against the Irish.

This fueled problems in Ireland. After 1793 Britain was afraid, after loosing America, that a revolution would happen in Ireland. So the restrictions on the Irish Catholics were done away with. This however angered the protestants who formed the Orange Order, who was against the Catholics. This all came to a head when in 1798 when a small rebellion broke out.

The independence of the Fenians was going to bring them a loss of power. As a result, the church and the government were against their desire of leaving England and becoming independent. There were many things that led to the aggravation and frustration of the Irish Fenians. Making them to rebel and start new movements to conquer their goal of British independence. Many of the Irish people gather into big groups and fought together.