I know someone’s going to verbally slap me for my ignorance when they read this, and I guess my only excuse is that I’m young and have never gotten around to finding out what it’s all about about. What I want to know is the reason there is so much fighting in nothern Ireland. My dad has tried to tell and I’ve seen Michael Collins, but I don’t really know all of the details (the more I write, the more ignorant I feel :smack: ).
Could someone point in the write direction to finding out the specifics. Book suggestions? Web-sites?
Initial English occupation of all of Ireland, followed up with a partial occupation of only part of Ireland (i.e., Northern Ireland) after Michael Collins gave up the north to get the rest of Ireland free.
Religion helps to heat up what would otherwise merely be a territorial/political battle. In case it isn’t obvious, you have the Catholics on the native Green/Irish side, and the Protestants on the Orange/English settlors side.
Or something like that. That’s all off the top of my head. I suppose I should run an Internet search or something, but that wouldn’t be any fun.
That’s a little bit simplistic, but the drift is there.
This is in GQ, so I’m not going to post anything which would trip it into GD territory.
Basically, if you want to read some books about the current conflict, check out anything by Martin Dillon, probably the greatest living authority on Irish terrorism. Especially The Dirty War which will summarise the past 30 years in Northern Ireland.
BTW, there are (basically) two sides to both communities in NI.
The Roman Catholics – Nationalists & Republicans.(hard-line)
Protestants – Unionists & Loyalists.(hard-line)
Obviously there are many, many other people who care not a jot about the conflict but just want to live out their lives in (relative) peace.
And that’s all I have to say about this issue in this forum.
gitfiddle: For a good, concise, general introduction to the history of Ireland, try The Oxford History of Ireland by R. F. Foster ( ed.). It’s a smallish, inexpensive paperback.
To give just a very little bit of historical background:
Ireland was essentially a colony of England ( later Great Britain ) of one sort or another from the Norman Conquest of the late 12th century to the early twentieth century. Although the authority of the English king and assorted English magnates in Ireland fluctuated widely, particularly in the 12th to late 16th centuries, from at least the mid-17th century on British control was fairly firm and secure. One of the legacies of Ireland’s status as a de facto colony was persistent ( if very sporadic ) attempts to settle English ( and later Scottish ) colonists in various parts of Ireland to “develop” the land for more efficient revenue generation and to provide a base of support for the Crown, as a buffer against the frequently ( at times dangerously from the English standpoint ) rebellious native Irish.
Most of these “plantations” ultimately failed in the sense that they were gradually “Gaelicized” and became de facto Irish ( though English as a language did become dominant in later centuries ). However some of the last of the big plantation settlements, those in central and eastern Ulster ( previously the most unconquered and native part of Ireland - referred to by English authorities as the ‘Great Irishry’ in the 15th and 16th centuries ), did “take”, with a mixture of Scottish and English Protestant settlers ( the local Irish were Catholic ). Eventually they became a local majority.
Accordingly, when Ireland won their independence in 1921 after a costly guerilla struggle, the descendants of these settlers, pro-British and deeply suspicious of the Irish nationalists in the rest of Ireland, were able to insist on their own Free State, with a Dominion status similar to Canada’s. This state included, however, a substantial Catholic minority. I won’t go into to details after that ( GD territory, much of it, as Aro said ), except to say that eventually violence broke out in and in the early 1970’s Britain re-established direct rule over Northern Ireland and the troubles escalated into a full-blown ( if occasionally low-key ) guerilla war between polarized factions.
I’ll reiterate though, that religious veneer aside, this struggle is more political/tribal/territorial.
I’ll just chime in with the link to the CAIN archive, which contains a wealth of information that’s been useful in previous discussions of these issues.
Got it a little muddled, I think. The rest of Ireland got Free State status, the North stayed part of the UK. Ireland stayed a Free State until 1937, when they adopted a new constitution.
That’s why I included the caveat about the degree to which they are being observed. As you have pointed out, this is GQ, and I tried to word my post accordingly.
The lack of any mention of the peace process in the potted histories just seemed unusual.
Captain Amazing: You are correct, I got partially muddled in recollection :). Hey, cut me a break, I’m getting old :D.
But Northern Ireland was set up as a separate “state” in 1921, with its own separate parliament and Prime Minister based in Stormont. This was abolished in 1972 in favor of direct rule from Westminister.
I’d agree with checking out this book but maybe not as an introduction as it’s a bit heavy-going at times.
The first book I usually recommend people read is Belfast Diary by John Conroy. It’s an account of how the conflict has shaped the residents of West Belfast’s day-to-day lives, written with the expectation that the reader would not be strongly familiar with the issues. Unfortunately it’s very out-of-date (Conroy lived in Belfast in the early 1980s), but I haven’t read any more recent books I would recommend quite so highly for beginners.
If you’re interested in the peace process, read Eamon Mallie and David McKittrick’s Endgame in Ireland.
Most of Tim Pat Coogan’s books are worth a read. And when you do have a bit of background in the subject, definitely try to find Michael Farrell’s Northern Ireland: The Orange State which covers the history of Norn Iron from its inception up to the early 1970s. Most books only gloss over the first 40 years, but this one shows exactly how the Stormont government’s policies in those years lay the groundwork for the violence which followed.
ruadh’s point is well-taken. The current conflict in the North was not inevitable–notwithstanding the history from the 12th through mid-20th centuries. There were specific policies affecting the ability of people to find work and maintain a decent standard of living (in an area frequently caught in economic downturns) that exacerbated the situation.
It should be noted, for example, that the Catholic-Protestant feud has much more to do with culture and class and economic discrimination than religious beliefs. (Ian Paisely has muddied that point, but he does not represent the general feelings on the ground. The “Catholic” IRA was dominated by anti-clericals and Marxists for a period of years, although I do not know that that has continued to the present.)
), except to say that eventually violence broke out in and in the early 1970’s Britain re-established direct rule over Northern Ireland and the troubles escalated into a full-blown ( if occasionally low-key ) guerilla war between polarized factions.