I know we have both English and Irish Dopers.
If we can avoid a flame war, as a Catholic living in the US, I’m wondering if I can get a grasp on the animosity of N. Ireland.
I won’t offer any more for the OP. Please just make your case on this situation, and leave it at that.
What exactly do you want to bebate? It’s a pretty bid subject, after all. The history of British/Irish animosity (been going on since Roman times), the subjegation of the Irish by the British since, say, Cronwell? Anti-cathoilc legislation passed since at least the 18th century? The rise of Republicanism? The partition? The rise of mlitancy in the late 60s? The Troubles? The 1998 peace accord? Present day catholic/protestant relations? At least give us a starting point.
duffer, I started writing a response to your OP and when I got to 5,000 words I stopped because I realised I was just writing a chronological history. It’s an incredibly complex situation. The best thing you can do is to read a summary of the history, and then ask a specific question.
The one piece of advice I’ll give you for comprehension is to realise is that this is not primarily a religious conflict - it’s political and ethnic. There are religious elements to the conflict, and opposing parties do largely fall into Protestant vs. Catholic, but this is mainly a byproduct of their cultures. The correct nomenclature is as follows:
Nationalists, mainly Catholic, who favour a united Ireland.
Republicans - hardline nationalists.
Unionists, mainly Protestant, who favour the retention of union with the United Kingdowm.
Loyalists - hardline unionists.
By the way, I’m English, though with Irish Protestant roots, married to an Irish Catholic, and I live in the Republic of Ireland. It’s really no longer a problem here; I have only very rarely experienced any antagonism about my nationality. Furthermore, we recently spent a weekend in Belfast and had a great time. Things are so much better than they were.
I stopped at 1000 
As has been said this is a huge area. What exactly are you looking for us to debate?
OK, wow, you’re asking a big topic.
First of all, it’s one where you need to be very careful about terminology. I hope you’re just forgetting that England != Britain. But on the other hand, the violence has far from been only the work of the IRA.
Other than that, I’m not going to try giving a potted history on the subject - but the BBC’s history page seems a good place to start.
One thing to note, that before the recent war on terrorism was not perhaps as obvious to your average US catholic, is that these guys are terrorists.
There are loyalist terrorists too. There are also soldiers that do things that, ideally, they shouldn’t.
I used to be rabidly anti-IRA until I was working with a skinhead Irishman and told the following joke:
“Have you heard about the IRA appeal for widows and orphans…the more money they collect the more widows and orphans they make.”
In a fortunately non-violent way he pointed out to me that this joke was not at all funny to most people from Northern Ireland particularly Catholics. He got me to read several books - I recall Biting At The Grave about the hunger strikes and Living In a War Zone by an American who lived in Belfast.
I ended up with an entirely different perspective that further conversations have not clarified.
What I have come to understand about the political and social situation in Northern Ireland has even made me equivocal about lots of “terrorist” activity.
There’s another important player you’ve left out: the British State. Loyalists and soldiers didn’t act entirely on their own.
True, although you might argue that in the absence of terrorists such actions would not have occurred.
The simple fact of the matter, as far as I am aware, is that the majority of that area at this time (and that time) prefer to remain a part of the UK. There can be no justification for not trying to solve any other disputes within the law.
Discrimination and injustices were going on in NI for decades before the IRA returned to the forefront of Irish society.
And when you see that you have no hope of getting redress through the law as the ruling power has created a situation where you have no political power, you don’t necessarily even have a vote, the police force is inaccessible to you due to the cultural group you were born into. When you do march for your civil rights the ruling power beat you and kill your friends what do you do then?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/troubles/origins/nicivil.shtml
The IRA carried out many horrendous and disgusting attacks on civilians. They used tactics that were despicable and inhuman but this anger came from a real sense of injustice and frustration. For a large amount of their history they have enjoyed a healthy degree of support within the nationalist community because of these injustices and inequalities.
And you might further argue that in the absence of the British occupation such actions would not have occurred.
Except it isn’t so simple. After all, it’s a majority artificially created for just such reason. OTOH, the majority in four of its counties want to rejoin Ireland, and yet there has never been any suggestion that they could be allowed to do so.
Of course the whole “Troubles” began because it was impossible for nationalists’ grievances to be solved within the law, as the law was entirely created, interpreted and enforced by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Come on ruadh. I’m trying to be fair here. You calling it an occupation when the majority favour it isn’t fair. The fact is that there are people there now. Both sides live with it - reference to “we were here hundreds of years ago” etc. doesn’t help these people.
I am of the opinion that NI should go to Ireland as soon as it, by majority, wishes to. From that position, I would not, in principal, be against chipping off contiguous parts that decide that they prefer Ireland than the UK. That might not be a sensible thing to do though if you’re trying to manage the loyalists in the areas that remain in the Union. Not that that’s a reason to discard it, but it’s certainly a consideration if you’re trying to avoid animosity/bloodshed/terror.
I think that, from an American perspective, the situation can be clarified by considering yojimbo’s point (not that, by quoting, I’m confirming it - I simply don’t know enough one way or the other):
What were these rights? Were they being denied religion? Were they being denied [insert other right here]? More so than the blacks in the deep South?
From my previous link
[quote]
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was formed in January 1967 as a response to four decades of Unionist discrimination against Catholics. It had five demands: one man, one vote in council elections; ending of gerrymandering of electoral boundaries; machinery to prevent discrimination by public authorities and to deal with complaints; fair allocation of public housing; repeal of Special Powers Act and disbanding of B Specials, a predominantly Protestant auxiliary police force.
[quote]
Very true, for example the RUC was overwhelmingly Protestant. The Catholics felt, with it seems real justification, that they were 2nd class citizens as far as law enforcement and justice were concerned. This does not justify terrorism, but no-one should be suprised that conditions in Northern Ireland resulted in a terrorist campaign.
It’s important to note that while the majority of the Civil Rights group were nationalist the movement was not about achieving a united Ireland.
BTW the IRA from their perspective were carrying on a tradition of armed struggle for self determination going back to Wolfe Tone and beyond. You cannot examine the reasons behind why the IRA and later the PIRA took up arms without at least understanding that in their opinion they were just the latest, in fact a direct continuation, of a very long line of republicans fighting British imperialism.
I agree the majority should decide the future of NI but remember when Ireland was partitioned it was against the wishes of the population of Ireland as a whole.
This is the kind of thinking that is behind the IRA and why they felt they had a duty to fight
At it’s most simple, it boils down to fear.
The protestant/unionists are descended from planters. They were a small group, living on land given to them by the crown. They had to defend themselves from the much larger population who happened to be the former owners of that land. Thus they put in place an infrastructure based on protecting their interests, at the expense of the interest of the indigenous population, who they were afraid of.
The catholic/nationalists had their land and livelihoods removed from them, and their culture, language and religion disparaged and diminished. They had few rights and freedoms, because of policies designed to “prevent unrest”.
So on one side, people are terrified that if they give everyone an equal share, then the situation will be reversed, and they will be left without rights and freedoms, with their culture and religion disparaged, and on the other you have people trying to regain their freedoms, without giving in to the factions that require some sort of vengeance for past wrongs.
One side benefits from the staus quo and wishes to preserve it because they fear the consequences for themselves and their families if they don’t. The othe side wishes to change the status quo, because they fear the consequences for themselves and their families if things remain as they are.
Unfortunately the fear breeds violence, bigotry and hatred, and that tends to complicate rational debate.
Then substitute the word “presence” if that makes you more comfortable. The point remains the same. If the IRA are responsible for British state collusion, then equally the British state, and its agents, are responsible for the IRA.
And I’m not just talking about “hundreds of years ago”. It’s well documented that the IRA had virtually ceased to exist by the time the Troubles started up in the late 1960s. The first victims of violence were innocent Catholics and civil rights marchers. At the time what was left of the IRA was led by a faction of Marxists in Dublin who were neither prepared nor willing to fight back and as a result of this graffiti was spraypainted in nationalist areas reading “IRA = I Ran Away” and old-time IRA men in Belfast such as Joe Cahill and Jimmy Steele were getting dog’s abuse from their neighbours for having abrogated their duties to protect the beleaguered nationalist population. The IRA came back into existence because nationalists needed protection from the loyalists and the security forces. The blame for the modern IRA can therefore be said to lie squarely at the feet of the state for its failure to provide this protection.
Northern Ireland was created precisely to create a territory which had a unionist majority. It followed no natural or social boundaries. So why should we wait until the artifically-created majority becomes a minority?
Not to mention against the wishes of two of the counties included in the new partitioned statelet.
Bromley, the nationalist community was indeed discriminated against, at a governmental level. Cite (which, by the way, is a critique of nationalist exaggeration of the situation).
The cite goes on to say that this didn’t necessarily apply just to nationalists, but:
Furthermore, gerrymandering was indeed rife:
And where were the major flashpoints at the start of the Troubles? Is this merely a coincidence?
At the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, the British government had a clear and unequivocal inequity that could and should have been immediately addressed. However, the government capitulated to the vested interests of the ruling parties.
My opinion: until recently, the British establishment screwed up at pretty much every juncture.
Every militaristic “solution” served to stir up antagonism and recruitment to Republican terrorist groups, which in turn led to recruitment to Loyalist ones. As did internment without trial, on both sides. Political capital was constantly squandered, as was the possibility for negotiation with the people who were committing the violence.
The terrorism that arose, and the gangsterism and sectarian violence that followed it, were of course unforgiveable, but these arose as a symptom of a situation that was handled for decades with incompetence, malign neglect, and post-colonial arrogance.