In 1920 there was an act set up by the British government and it was named The Government Of Ireland Act. The British governments idea was to split Ireland into 2 separate parts and let each side rule for itself.
In the Northern side of Ireland the Ulster Protestants didn’t want a separate Ireland so they gave full support to the British. In the end the support from these Protestant wasn’t good enough and both the Protestants and the British gave into a separate Ireland. Also in that year the six most protestant counties of Ulster were given their own parliament and government. There was a large catholic minority in these six counties and in 2 of the 6 there was more Catholics than Protestants. This did not matter though and the new parliament of Northern Ireland was called Stormont. Stormont was to have power over any rulings in the north but the new state was to stay part of the UK
The southern side of Ireland were with the government of Ireland act. Although in 1921 a group of leading Sinn Fein and I.R.A members went to London to talk to the British Government. In December 1921 they left London having signed a treaty with the British accepting that Ireland was temporarily divided. This therefore meant that the 26 counties of Southern Ireland became known as free state. This was a free state but initially it stayed part of the British Commonwealth.
From 1922 through to around 1968 things changed dramatically in the North side of Ireland. The Catholic in Northern Ireland were oppressed, made second best. The Protestants treated Catholics like this because they were a Protestant parliament and a Protestant state. Also every Protestant saw the Catholics as a possible traters, they thought that the Catholics would of wanted Ireland to be one.
To make them feel like second class citizens they would use such tactics as Gerrymandering the local borders to give Unionist candidates a better chance of winning. This was a way o gaining more land and with this land it meant that they would have more people to vote for them. They would also discriminate against the Catholics through the employment side of things and the housing, but overall the general law. It took the Catholics a long time to fight back but in 1967 the C.R.A was founded. ’Civil Rights Movement’. The Catholic gathered all their inspiration from Martin Luther King as they realised that they were in the same situation as himself. The C.R.A was to protect the Catholic minority from all Political, Housing and Employment rights.
Deployment Of Troops
When the British troops were first sent into Northern Ireland the Catholics were initially pleased to see them. As they weren’t so keen to see the return of the I.R.A and felt that the British would protect from the Protestants. When the soldiers first arrived on the streets the Catholics were so pleased that they greeted them with cups of tea and sandwiches. For once they felt save to walk along there own streets again. This atmosphere didn’t last long amongst the Soldiers and the Catholics.
It wasn’t long before the occasional clumsy brutality on the part of the British provoked an angry reaction from the population. It therefore wasn’t difficult for an I.R.A to use this reaction to their own ends. The British army was trained to aggressive and on the 27th June 1970 for the first time armed provisionals appeared on the streets to challenge the U.V.F (Ulster Volunteer Force). This gun fight lasted all night and by the of it there were 5 people killed, 3 Protestants. The armys response to this was to get tough and on the 3rd July they went on a rage through the Catholics homes to search for arms. This led to allegations of damaged property and the Catholics were told to stay inside. This lasted 36 hours.
This was the beginning of the atmosphere changing amongst the soldiers and the Catholics. Although all these things happened the main thing that changed their opinion towards the soldiers was when they join up and helped Mr Brian Faulkner. Faulkner was the last Stormont prime minister and joined in March 1971. in March when Faulkner joined the provos were in the middle of a bombing campaign and it actually reached the stage were they had realised 304 bombs between January and July. Faulkner then came up with the idea to stop all violence and to this he was going to use internment. The reason for this idea was because when he was a young politician he helped to deal with the last outbreak of I.R.A violence and internment was used then. The thing that really bugged the Catholics about this idea was the fact that he had said that internment was to be used against any suspected terrorists, Protestants as well as Catholics. The fact that the British troops had first come over to protect the Catholics and now they were just arresting them for doing nothing. That’s why the Catholics opinion really changed.
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday was on the 30th January in 1972, and on this day the Parrotroopers were held responsible for the death of 13 Catholics. The Parrotroopers went in a fired 180 rounds and out of this these people were killed. The Provisionals decided to take action to ‘Bloody Sunday’ and they targeted all Protestant businesses. They delivered 20 bombs in 2 weeks. With this bombing masac the Provos had ended up flantening the centre of Londondery. One of the main short term consequences ofBloody Sunday was that Stormont was suspended. Bernadette Devlin was an eye witness to the shootings on Bloody Sunday and also a member of the House of Commons. The reason for this suspension was that in Dublin 20,000 people were attacking the British embassy and burnt it down. The prime minister then felt he had to step in so he suspended Stomont. In the end of all this a Direct Rule from London was introduced, which meant that Northern Ireland could no longer rule for its self and had to go by what the London Parliament said.
On the long-term side of things for Bloody Sunday, there was a ‘Bloody Friday’, which was made by the I.R.A. this was given the name when the I.R.A planted 26 bombs inside of cars and gave no warning to the public. As the I.R.A were so bothered about the fact that they couldn’t rule themselves they wanted the British to talk. They realised that if bombing Belfast wouldn’t work then they would start hitting places in Britain.
In 1974 they actually planted bombs in Britain and this was their lead on from both Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday. The I.R.A planted a bomb in two pubs in Birmingham and gave no warning. They explodided and 19 people were killed. They also hit a pub in Guildford. Four people were jailed for that incident. Although this bomb was I 1975 a year before the same bomb took place and 5 people were killed.
From Bloody Sunday up until now there has been other long term concequences such as:
1973-74 = Sunningdale Agreement
1982 = Assembly
1985 = Anglo Irish Agreement
1993 = Downing Street Declaration
Question 2
The Power Sharing Schemes
The British Government thought that the power sharing would work because it would be satisfying both the Catholics and the Protestants. The Catholics would get a say in the governing and Northern Ireland would stay part of the United Kingdom. This did not end up working out as planned for the British Government as the Protestants opposed the idea. They believed the Catholics did not just want a say in the governing but they also wanted to destroy Northern Ireland and become a United Ireland. Also the Protestants believed all Catholics were involved with the I.R.A. this distrust of the Catholics was nothing new, as back in the early seventeenth century in the time of the Protestant Plantations. Ireland was divided by their faiths into two distinct groups of people.
In May 1974 a group of leading class protestants, known as the Ulster workers council called a strike. This was the Protestants defeat over the Sunningdale Agreement. As they threatened a complete shutdown at the electricity power stations and sewage pumping stations. Brian Faulkner who was still prime minister was faced with these dreadful things and resigned on May 28th. The Power Sharing Executive came to an end.
The progress of any Power Sharing Schemes came to nothing in the early 1980s. this was due to the level of Catholics support shown for the Hunger Strikes in 1981.There was a huge response to the funeral of Bobby Sands and this together with the rise in support for Sinn Fein, meant that it was to have lasting consequences on Northern Ireland.
The Anglo-Irish Agreement
In 1985 Mrs Thatcher signed ‘The Anglo-Irish Agreement’ for Britain with the Ireland prime minister Dr Garret Fitzgerad. This was to set up a joint committee of the two governments to discuss such matters as Justice and the Law in Northern Ireland, other matters such as Security Forces. They hoped this agreement would find ways of convincing Unionists and Nationalists