Northern Ireland Conflict

As a group of seven Students as well as Genevieve and Donal, we made a trip up to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland, as you may know, has been a place of conflict for many years. The conflict started with the 17th century plantations, the largest concentration of plantations being in Ulster. The plantation was a time when the British came into Ireland and took the land from the people. There are three major actors in this conflict: The Protestants who are Unionists and pro-union with Great Britain, Catholics who are Nationalists and want to unify Ireland, and Britain who wanted control over Ireland. Overall in Ireland, the Protestants were the minority group and Catholics were majority, but in Northern Ireland it was the other way around. The Protestants in the north of Ireland felt British because Britain was very protestant as well many of the people from the north came from British areas to begin with. A very large and symbolic battle happened from July 1, 1690 to July 12, 1690 called the Battle of the Boyne. This battle was between King William of Orange III, a Protestant, and King James II, a Catholic. King William of Orange III defeated King James II in the battle and destroyed James’ attempt to regain the crown of Ireland. The battle is still commemorated today in Northern Ireland on July 12th of every year. The Protestant group of Orange Men walk through the Catholic community to remind the Catholics who won the battle and what that means for them.

The Protestants are very pro-British and don’t want home rule. In the early 20th century the Unionists campaign against home rule and in 1913 the Ulster Volunteer Force is formed to oppose home rule. The Catholics retaliated on Easter 1916 when the Nationalists had the Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland. The Easter rising was simply a way for the Catholic and Nationalist group in all of Ireland to take a stand and hope to end the British Rule in Ireland. Unfortunately the rising was ended after seven days and the rebels were court-martialed and executed by the people at Kilmainham Gaol. Finally in 1922 the Irish Free State was founded and Northern Ireland was still a part of the United Kingdom. There was still a lot of fighting from the 1920s to 1960s when the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association campaigned against Catholic people.

The time from 1969 to 1998 became known as “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. The protestant group known as the Ulster Volunteer Force killed many Catholics in 1969. The “Battle of the Bogside” was also in 1969 in Derry where many Catholic Nationalists rioted against the British. In 1972 “Bloody Sunday” was when British Troops killed fourteen Catholic civil rights demonstrators. This killing only intensified the Irish Republican Army who was a part of the Catholic Nationalist group. The Nationalists then went on hunger strike to protests for political status and Bobby Sands in 1981 was elected Sinn Fein MP to the UK Parliament soon before he died. Ireland finally started to get some influence in what went on in Northern Ireland starting in 1985 with the Anglo- Irish Agreement.

This shortly led to the “Peace Process” in Northern Ireland. In 1994 there was a provisional IRA ceasefire, which lead to other major terrorist groups on both sides ending violence as well. The Good Friday Agreement came about in 1998 calling for ceasefire by majority of terrorist groups, power-sharing government formed and The republic of Ireland was required to withdraw its territorial claim to Northern Ireland from their constitution. Unfortunately, the power sharing government did collapse in 2002 but was re-established in 2007 with the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein being the largest parties from both sides. Since this, there has been some fighting still by groups like the IRA who have commemorators, but are illegal. And every year on July 12th the Orange men go marching through the Catholic streets to stir up trouble and remind them of the battle they lost.

As an American, it seemed surprising to me that the Catholics living in Northern Ireland did not move to the Republic of Ireland. But, when you think about the size of Ireland and the .5 million Catholics that are in Northern Ireland now, there is no way they could re-locate to other parts of Ireland. I was told that many Catholics had originally fled from Northern Ireland at the beginning of the trouble and just those few people created a lot of trouble for the other small towns in Ireland. It was also shocking to see just how many murals there are when we visited Belfast and Derry. Both the Protestant and Catholic communities have murals all over that are constantly getting updated to tell their side of the story. The one that caught my eye the most was one from the Protestant community in Belfast. There was a member of the Ulster Freedom Fighters dressed in Uniform with a gun pointed at you. This gun was painted so wherever you were standing and looking at the mural you would see it pointing back at you. Another one that caught my eye on the Catholic side was the mural of Frederick Douglass, the American slave that escaped from slavery and came to Ireland, and how he became an inspiration for the Catholics trying to escape the rule of the Protestant British.

Originally, when I came to Ireland I had no knowledge of the conflict in Northern Ireland. I thought that Ireland was all one country and had no fighting like they did. I think this issue in Northern Ireland and my new grasp of the conflict has really brought me back to reality with the history of Ireland. I always thought of it as a nice green place with lots of hills, sheep, a love of the land and nice people, but the education I have received while being in Ireland has truly transformed my view into something more realistic without destroying everything I had thought before.