Events about northern Ireland?

Question

I am very confused about the situation on the northern ireland split with southern ireland and the easter rising and bloody sunday etc etc!
what events made this happen?
What are the different veiws of the two sides?
What other events happened to create such a situation of different veiws?

Answer 1

If you are serious, you should watch all 5 parts of this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-6tuOKBdR0

Answer 2

A very good question, one that would take weeks to answer and then some. The Irish troubles started way back in 1600 hundreds or maybe earlier when one of the Edward Kings decided to take an army and invade the land known as Ireland. From that day forward there has always been fighting and feuding.

The blame as usual has been laid at the door of the English but Edward was not English and many of the people who invaded were not English. Later on in history a Lord Fairfax commissioned by Oliver Cromwell to crush the Irish and was responsible for some of the worst atrocities ever perpetrated on the Irish Peoples. The Welsh and the Scots were also guilty of warring and fighting the Irish.

Religion has played a pivotal role in many of the problems in both Northern and Southern Island, but hopefully this will soon be a thing of the past and that North and South can try and get along together..though I doubt as a united Ireland every again.

You ought to try and get a book out of the library about Ireland if want to learn more about the history of the Ireland and it's people.

Answer 3

My advice: Try reading material from both the Irish Republic and Britain. The British media is has always been slightly biased against Irish Republicanism to the extent that they conveniently ignore the hardline Unionists, the really nasty ones who caused the problems during the 1960s. Likewise the Irish media, despite having actually banned any IRA members from talking on the television (lifted a few years back), is inclined to be a bit biased against the Unionist side ...

You need to get some good history books by writers from both Britain and Ireland and actually read up on it. Asking the questions here is a very bad idea because, well, people are biased and the situation is already complicated enough without their bias. My own included ... but hey I'm honest, and you say you want to know.

Answer 4

Your questions are very good, but would take a long time to answer them all.

A lot of the problems date back to the time of Elizabeth I in the early 1600's, when the English decided to create Plantations in Ireland and moved many Protestant settlers over to Ireland, displacing many Catholics as they did so. Some plantations were successful (e.g. Ulster) and some less so (e.g. Munster), but the permanent effect was the co-existence of two different groups of people with different religious viewpoints and a different background and history.

The feuding between the Protestants and Catholics has flared up throughout the ensuing 400 years in one way or another. It's not so much a religious thing as an issue of identity - whose history and culture to you associate yourself with? Protestants have traditionally associated themselves with Britain and British values, while Catholics have associated themselves with Ireland and Irish cultural values. Oil and Water...

Northern Ireland, the centre of the Ulster Plantation, was always staunchly pro-British, while the rest of Ireland tended to be mainly Catholic and not so fond of Britain, as they felt that the British government discriminated against them. This feeling of discrimination became very keenly felt after the potato famine in the mid 19th century. Britain tried to resolve these issues, and just before the First World War, had agreed to grant Ireland political autonomy, or Home Rule.

1916 was a culmination of Irish political nationalism essentially making an opportunistic strike at Britain when Britain was focused on other issues (ie the first world war). However the results were much more dramatic than anyone expected. It pitted Irish nationalism against the British government in an unprecedented way, essentially a guerrilla war began, and it ended in 1921 with a Treaty whereby the (mainly Catholic) "south "was divided from the (mainly Protestant) "north".

* Sourthern Ireland is inaccurate: Malin Head in Donegal is the most northerly part of the island, but it is not part of Northern Ireland. We tend to refer to this part of the country as the Republic of Ireland.

Answer 5

The first 2 answers are right about the history, too complicated to get through in one night.
I can answer about the views: Nationalists see themselves as Irish and think Northern Ireland should be part of the Republic of Ireland.
Unionists see themselves as "British" and say they want to stay in the United Kingdom, in my opinion they just want to keep the power for themselves - they are not really concerned about the Union.
Describing the thing as "different views" is the understatement of the century, most people on both sides still hate each other's guts, and nearly everything that happens is grist to the mill for those that want to keep this hatred alive and pass it on to their children. Nobody really cares anymore about how it started in the first place.

Answer 6

We are all confused about the events in Northern Ireland. The Brittish manipulation of the press and poor memories of the victims of this occupation.
We will never know the truth, I am afraid. All I know is what my grandfather told me about the horrors of the Brittish occupation and the death and sorrow they brought to this wonderful country. The Brits attempted to do the same thing here in the states and we were large enough in numbers to force them out. Regretably the Irish weren't.
Remember, most of what you hear today is as watered down and politically warped as ABC's fictional account of9/11.
We will never know the truth in America as long as history shows we didn't lift a finger to help the Irish fight for liberty.

Answer 7

I'd suggest that you go to www.findarticles.com.

I entered the search Northern Ireland ira and came up with a couple thousand full text articles.

Answer 8

The IRA was causing mayhem in London by digging holes everywhere for no apparent reason. They bought up the construction firms and dug holes and put cones round them and left them there. All over. Traffic comes to a complete halt. You couldn't even go to the shops for congestion! And we paid them off eventually, but any time they run out of funds, the barriers are up again and the diggers are back. Hope that explains it all. Have a good day!

Answer 9

properly, one ingredient is they weren't allowed to hold seats on England's Parliament. additionally, there is the potato famine of the 1800s. England substitute into meant to be an best buddy to eire, yet she in particular disregarded the ravenous Irish Catholics

Answer 10

Robespierre, I am tired of people assuming that all Irish are IRA, with your reference to the IRA digging up the roads. Get a life!!!!!

Answer 11

Don't risk a monster headache trying to make sense of this subject.