Northern and Southern Ireland conflicts?

Question

I'm writing an essay for school and I need help understanding Ireland's situation. What's the deal with the Catholics and Protestans, how do they treat each other? How long have things been this way? any help i can get is very much appreciated.

Answer 1

What we call the "troubles" in Northern Ireland really started after 1968, when a protest march was shot at and 13 protesters killed by British soldiers. This event polarised the 2 communities with one side claiming that the soldiers shot without provocation, the other saying they were attacked by IRA snipers.
The protest was about civil rights for Catholics, who at that time could be prevented from voting by not giving them social housing. 1/3 of the Catholic workforce at the time were unemployed, as opposed to 7% of Protestants.

This conflict is not really about religion, it is at its heart an old-fashioned tribal war between Celts and Anglo-Saxons. Religion is only the thing that keeps it going, children being segregated by their denomination and never meeting until they are grown. Even now both sides are fighting tooth and nail to keep their denominational schools, and parents have to fight hard to set up "bipartisan" schools.

The athmosphere has relaxed a lot though since the "Good Friday" or "Belfast" agreement, where a lot of the problems have been settled. The Republic changed its constitution and is not claiming souvereignty over the "6 counties" (=Northern Ireland),
and the Protestants have agreed that a referendum can be called every 5 years, if people so decide, to determine the political allegiance of "the North".

But the conflict is by no means over. In the last elections both sides voted in their majorities for the more radical parties, and especially Ian Paisley (leader of the Democratic Ulster Party) is still very much against power sharing with Sinn Fein, whom he accuses to be terrorists.
This is very hypocritical in my view, since his own speeches and actions have contributed largely to the hatred, and although he never dirtied his own hands, he is as guilty as those who did.

Answer 2

Good luck with that, you can guarantee that whatever people write down here it's more complicated than that.. and you are also guaranteed to offend at least one person with your essay!!

They hasn't been a conflict in Southern Ireland for a long time, at least not on the scale of the North...

Answer 3

The best way to find out stuff about it is to look up wikipedia or other websites (as the other answerers have said). But can I just point out that "Southern Ireland" isn't the right term - it's Ireland, Eire, or the Republic of Ireland.

Answer 4

Was all started in southern Ireland with the priests and brothers were raping young protestant boys and girls and young children
so the protestants could take no more so they formed their own country Northern Ireland. But the priests and others were not happy losing the young protestant children to abuse so they started the IRA and started to bomb the innocence in Northern Ireland to try to wreck the state this went on for 30 years until the British stepped in and forced peace on the priests and prosecuted them and jailed a lot of them.

Answer 5

Hi there,

It's a long story but you could refer to this wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ireland

Hope this helps :)
GA