On the other hand, both sides have terrorist movements that use violence to get their point across. The IRA and the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army) represent the Nationalist through violence and terror, whereas the UDA and the UDF counter this for the Unionists. Some people think that Sinn Fein secretly back the IRA and fund their weapons.
Until very recently the IRA have been terrorising Northern Ireland. They have been bombing and shooting innocent people just to prove a point. However, recently the IRA has claimed that they have completely decommissioned their weapons. Most people believe this however there is no photographic evidence, which makes the Ulster Unionists unsure if any action, has really been taken.
The Potato Famine 1845-1851
Ireland is in your hands, in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. I solemnly call upon you to recollect that I predict with the sincerest conviction that a quarter of her population will perish unless you come to her relief.
Daniel O'Connell, to the British House of Commons, 1847.
This quote was said by Daniel O’Connell, an Irish politician proclaiming that unless help is given to Ireland then it will be destroyed. Also he is saying that the fate of Ireland is in the hands of the British.
Potatoes were a huge product in Ireland at that time. The Catholics working on the plantations had to give the crops that they ploughed to the Protestant Lords and Ladies as payment for letting them stay on their estates. As a reward for working they were allowed to keep the potatoes that they ploughed as food or to sell for money. If there was a shortage of potatoes, then the payments would still happen therefore leaving the workers with less food. So you can only imagine what happened when the potato famine hit.
The famine began when the leaves of the potatoes started to go black, curl up and rot therefore poisoning the potatoes. This was a result of a black fog that drifted across the plains and poisoned the rainwater. It ruined the crop and left the workers with no food. They tried eating the corn crops that they picked for the estate owners but this left them with nothing to pay them with. This angered the estate owners and either sacked them or told them to pay them and starve. This left people with little choice and many of them chose to keep working as if they did not then they would have no home. However this was to no avail as many people died as a result of this.
Winds from southern England carried the fungus to the countryside around Dublin. The blight spread throughout the fields as fungal spores settled on the leaves of healthy potato plants, multiplied and were carried in the millions by cool breezes to surrounding plants. Under ideal moist conditions, a single infected potato plant could infect thousands more in just a few days.
As the workers were under direct rule from the British Government, their appeal to them was not strong. Therefore the government sent out very little aid, as there was not a lot of awareness in Britain. However when they did find out about it, very little action was taking. As long as the rich Protestant estate owners kept getting their money then little else mattered.
The effects of the famine were devastating. The economy was ruined, the workforce was decreased as many had died and many emigrated to the USA to get away from the poverty of Ireland. Therefore highlighting the problems in Ireland.
This just made the Nationalists very angry and they hated the Unionists and Britain even more. The lack of care taken by the British Government even turned some Unionists against them as they thought what they were doing was truly horrific.
Bloody Sunday 30th January 1972
On January 30, 1972, soldiers from the British Army's 1st Parachute Regiment opened fire on supposedly unarmed civilian demonstrators in the Bog side, Derry, Ireland, near the Rossville flats, killing 13 and wounding a number of others. One wounded man later died from illness attributed to that shooting.
The march, which was called to protest internment, was "illegal" according to British government authorities. Internment without trial was introduced by the British government on August 9, 1971. The British government-appointed Widgery Tribunal found the soldiers were not guilty of shooting dead the 13 civilians in cold blood.
The march was a protest march by the Catholics against internment without trial. They were halted when they approached the army barricade. The march was illegal because the Stormont Parliament had banned such protests and they were made to stop. Protestors threw stones at the regiment. At first the regiment only retaliated with rubber bullets and water cannons, but this did not dampen the spirits of the protestors who continued to throw stones. Eventually the regiment was at the end of their tether with them. They opened rounds of bullets on them and killed 13 supposedly innocent protestors.
This was seen as cold blooded killing as the protestors were not armoured nor had any protection. They were innocent of any crime as there was no proof that they were actually throwing stones.
The actual events that followed after the first attacks on the soldiers are not clear. The soldiers say they were fired upon from the Rossville flats as they moved in to make arrests and that they returned fire. The Catholic community says soldiers on the ground and army snipers on the city walls above the Bog side shot unarmed civilians.
Protestants back in Britain and in Northern Ireland felt that the killings were not cold blooded, as they were done in self defence from the shower of stones that were reigning down on them. It also concluded the soldiers had been fired upon first and some of the victims had handled weapons. They felt that what the Catholics were doing was illegal and needed to be stopped. They accepted the fact that killing someone was also a crime, but they supposedly knew that it was an act of self defence.
Another argument for the Army regiment was that they tried to halt the proceedings peacefully then when the protestors started attacking them with stones, the used rubber bullets and water cannons to stop, but this did not make them stop, and they would not have stopped unless somebody got seriously injured or killed.
The Catholic community rejected these findings and began the long campaign for another inquiry. In 1998 a fresh inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday was announced.
Northern Ireland Assembly and It’s Problems
The New Northern Ireland Assembly was established as part of the Belfast Agreement reached at the multi-party negotiations on Friday 10th April 1998, and is now commonly referred to as the “Good Friday Agreement”. Under the Agreement, the Assembly has parliamentary and executive authority in respect of those matters previously within the responsibility of 6 Northern Ireland government departments.
- Department of Agriculture
- Department of Economic Development
- Department of Education
- Department of the Environment
- Department of Finance and Personnel
- Department of Health and Social Services
Following a referendum held on May 22nd 1998, which resulted in a majority voting in favour of the agreement, the New Northern Ireland Assembly was constituted under “The Northern Ireland (Elections) Act 1998”. 108 members were elected to the assembly on the 25th June 1998 by Single Transferable Vote from the existing 18 Westminster constituencies.
There have been many problems since the Good Friday Agreement and the constituting of the Northern Ireland Assembly. These problems have been on both sides, as one side wants something the other side turns it down etc. Agreements have not been able to take place because of the stubbornness of either side. Even it was set up to try and resolve the strife between them.
Firstly, many of the Sinn Fein candidates elected to the New NI Assembly were former IRA men with criminal records for extreme violence and murder. Also because the IRA still kept their weapons and had not decommissioned them, the Unionists (UUP/DUP) were suspicious. Their thoughts were summed up in this quote, “You can’t discuss politics with men who have bombs and bullets behind their backs”, and thus making their fears have been difficult to overcome after 25 years of violence.
Another key problem is the IRA failing to decommission their weapons, as they believe it to be “a surrender”. Also, this gave the IRA/Sinn Fein a strong bargaining point to ensure that terrorists are released and the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) be disbanded. At present, the NI Assembly is presently suspended because of this issue. However, very recently the IRA has supposedly decommissioned their weapons. Therefore, in my opinion, I believe that the NI Assembly will resume very soon.
The segregation of many Catholics and Protestants has been a major setback with the resolution of the problems between each side. They live in segregated communities and send their children to separate religious schools. These action cause fear in the younger generation of the other religion as they are growing up with incidents such as the Holy Cross Riots in 2001 when police and military troops had to escort Catholic children to their school on the edge of a Protestant area.
Also, every year the Orangemen’s parades, which celebrate the Battle of the Boyne when William of Orange defeated Catholic “Rebels”, provoke the Catholics in the North every summer. The Catholics do not like this, so they retaliate therefore causing more violence between the two. As well as this, the presence of British troops in Northern Ireland angers the Catholics/Nationalists, which again just ends up in riots and violence. Therefore Catholics and Protestants alike become vigilantes and take the law into there own hands. This is mainly the IRA and the UDF/UDA that takes charge.
Sinn Fein believe hat the Northern Ireland Police force, The NI Police service, is still discriminating the Catholics, and Sinn Fein refuse to do anything until the Catholics are treated equally, and/or the NI Police Service is disbanded.
More recently, the Belfast bank robbery, in which £20m was stolen, is almost certainly to have been done by the IRA. This is not the only crime that is taking place. Many IRA/Sinn Fein extremists are getting involved in gang warfare, drugs and severe extortion to try and oppress the opposition. Even more recent is the September 2005 riots in the Protestant areas. This was thought to be fuelled by the anger in that community that the British Government had made too many concessions to the IRA.
All of the above problems with Northern Ireland are causing the Assembly to be suspended; however there is a few that if they are not sorted then the Assembly can still run but there is also a few that is they are resolved then the Northern Ireland Assembly will struggle.
The main reason for the Assembly being suspended is that the IRA was not decommissioning their weapons. This angered the Unionists because that they knew as long as the IRA and its weapons were still at large, then the Protestants and the unionist population would not be entirely safe.
Also, the segregation of the Catholics and Protestants has been a problem with the resolution of peace between them. If this is not resolved, then even if the IRA and other terrorist groups do decommission their weapons, the children growing up in this hatred and violence of one another, will hate each other and keep fighting with each other because they will not know any better. I think if a good impression is to be made about a peaceful Northern Ireland then the children and different communities should learn to live together.
At present, the Northern Ireland Assembly is not currently running, however the recent decommissioning of IRA weapons is a positive step forward for bringing the peace between the Republic of Ireland and Ulster. I think soon the Northern Ireland Assembly will soon start up again as big steps are being made to help the Northern Ireland cause.
There are also a lot of past events that have influenced the way the Northern Ireland Assembly is set up and run. For example, Bloody Sunday angered many Catholics as supposedly innocent people were shot dead. To this day, no one is actually sure of what happened on the 30th January 1972, but what is clear is that 13 “innocent” people were killed and that is what angers the Nationalists.
Another event is the potato famine, where many Catholics died due to British ignorance and Protestant greediness. Another one is the Easter Rising of 1916, where Catholic extremists stormed the General Post Office and declared Ireland was a free state. However minutes later they were arrested and the 15 leaders of this movement were executed and died as martyrs. The Protestants and the British took such drastic action because they were extremely annoyed at the Nationalists for not fighting in WWI with them, and instead spreading violence and bloodshed behind there backs trying to liberate Ireland.
Also the passing of the Home Rule bills is another key event. The House of Lords had declined Home Rule for Ireland two times before finally agreeing to let Ireland have Home Rule. But as this Bill was passing through the House of Commons, WWI struck out, and the minds of the British were elsewhere. However, the Irish liberators were not going to wait for the war to finish, so they took the law into their own hands and started the Easter Rising of 1916.
Overall I think that both parties are equally to blame for violence and terror that has happened around Northern Ireland. It has not been a recent occurrence either, it has been a long drawn out haul of disagreement after disagreement which could have topped a long time ago if both sides were not so stubborn and did what was actually best for their people rather what was not good for the opposition. Also, I think it is important that the children growing up near and around Northern Ireland live a happy life not full of violence and are given positive role models to aspire to rather than that of the IRA and the UDF. Sadly, I cannot see this happening anytime in the near future but hopefully, over time, both sides learn to live and co-exist alongside one another peacefully.