The Cause of the Northern Island Troubles

The Cause of the Northern Island Troubles In this essay I am going to try and decide whether the cause of the

Northern Island troubles were long term or short term. Some people

believe that the troubles in Northern Ireland began hundreds of years

ago - that the current conflict was started by religious differences

and has continued to the present day. The other viewpoint is that the

disturbance today only began when tensions started building at the

time of the Civil Rights movements/marches during the 1960s. This

viewpoint claims that earlier events had no bearing on the struggles

of today, they were simply used to make a point of whom out of the

Nationalist or the Unionists were right.

View One

Many people believe that the conflict really began in the 1530s when

Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and set up his

own Protestant Church in England. Although Protestantism was now the

major religion in England most of the Irish people remained Catholic,

so Henry declared himself King of Ireland. He tried to anglicise the

Irish so they would no longer appear against the English. This could

be a major religious cause as it created the two separate groups of

people in the first place - making it an important factor in bringing

about the difficulties. Catholics could feel like they were alienated

from the start - and the fact that King Henry just declared himself

king of Ireland could strengthen some Nationalist argu...

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...appened, I think that if

there wasn't a little bit of hatred between them in the first place

these stories would not have come about.

I think the more important causes of the troubles in Northern Ireland

were early, like when Henry VIII created Protestantism. When he tried

to force this on the Irish. When King James I took land away from

Irish Catholics and gave it away to British Protestants. Factors such

as these triggered a separation that has lasted centuries. I believe

that the separation that this caused eventually led to the

partitioning of Ireland, which in turn, led to discrimination and

violence in 1969.

In conclusion, though the violence in 1969 seemingly was caused by the

tensions in the 1960s and the civil rights marches, the tensions

wouldn't have existed if it weren't for all that came before it.