I have always thought the term ‘The Troubles’ to refer to the period of unrest in Northern Ireland in the late 20th Century to be a wonderful term, albeit for such a horribly violent, devisive and depressing period in Irish history. Does anyone knopw the origination of the term, if it even has one? Or did it just come about generically?
I’ve always taken it to be a) a euphemism, and b) typical understatement (cf. “The Emergency” to refer to WWII).
I can’t find anything as to the origins of the term.
Maybe if you look around these links you may find something.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/troubles/index.shtml
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/The_Troubles
Likewise, I’ve always viewed it as at attempt at a euphemistic understatement, of the “oh, it’s no matter, it will all blow over soon” sort of thing. :smack SImply don’t know who coined the phrase though 
:smack:
As a euphemism, it doesn’t compare to the term a few elderly Southerners use for the American Civil War: “the Recent Unpleasantness.”
Without any cite available to hand, I always believed that The Troubles was a term coined by the UK press in 1919 to describe the goings-on in ireland at the time. But these days, the phrase normally applies to the tension in the North since 1968.