Why is there violence within both Unionist and Nationalist groups in Northern Ireland?
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Introduction
Why is there violence within both Unionist and Nationalist groups in Northern Ireland? There is violence within both Unionist and Nationalist groups in Northern Ireland because of disagreements over the Good Friday agreement. This is the national focus of their violence. The Catholic terrorist groups do not like the idea of the Good Friday agreement because it is bringing peace instead of a United Ireland. The Real Irish Republic Army (RIRA) broke off from the Provisional IRA (PIRA) because of the Good Friday agreement bringing peace instead of a united Ireland. The RIRA and the Continuity IRA have broken off from the PIRA, which is on a ceasefire at the moment. It is also the biggest splinter group. The PIRA have no control over the splinter groups. The RIRA do not want power shared in an assembly in Northern Ireland because it used to be completely protestant. Because of the splinter groups not being on a ceasefire, there is fighting amongst themselves and deaths have occurred because of it. The RIRA is believed to have been stepping efforts to destabilise the peace process and stop the decommissioning of weapons happening. ...read more.
Middle
Recently though the IRA has started to decommission its weapons. This is a very important step in the peace process and I think that it is the beginning of end of all the fighting at last. Why has there been so much violence between the Catholic and Protestant communities in Ireland in the last 200 years? In 1796 and 1798 Wolf Tone tried to free Ireland from Britain's control but this ended in defeat. The British government responded to Wolf Tones movement by the Act Of Union in 1801. The act officially joined Great Britain and Ireland together. The term Unionist, which describes those who wanted the Act to happen, began after the Act Of Union. In the 19th century the main aim of the protestant community was to remain united with Great Britain. The main aim of the Catholics was full Catholic emancipation. They want Ireland to become united with Northern Ireland and completely independent from Britain. Daniel O'Connell, a Catholic Lawyer, became the leader of the people fighting for this. In 1829 the British government feared a new Irish rebellion and they pushed through the Catholic emancipation act that granted full legal equality to Catholics. ...read more.
Conclusion
Religion is one of the main beginners of the violence because all of the people in Ireland used to be Catholic. Then Britain came and planted Protestants in to Ireland during 1155-1533 and they got all of the best jobs leaving the Catholics with not much. This forced the Catholics to become lower than the Protestants and the Catholics resented England and the Protestants for that. Irish history is another major contributing factor to the violence. The English took land from Catholics and gave it to Protestants. This provoked the Catholics and they began to attack Protestants. The Protestants retaliated and this went on for a while. King James 11 came to the throne in1685. He was a Catholic King and the Protestant Irish were scared that the Catholics who were helped by James 11 would overthrow them. Luckily for the Irish Protestants the English did not like James 11 and they overthrew him. William of Orange became king. James went to France to gather an army and then went to Ireland to get support of the Catholic Irish. William of Orange and James 11 met at the Battle of the Boyne. William beat James and the Irish Protestants knew that they were going to be the top dogs of Ireland for quite a while. Tom Grigg 11PT ...read more.
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