With what success has the Britain government tried to deal with the Irish Troubles In the years since 1972?

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Ever Since Partition in 1921 many thousands of people have been killed or seriously injured because of the troubles in Northern Ireland. The British government have been trying to sort out these troubles since they began. Partition was the British Governments first effort to end the conflicts in Northern Ireland; it did not work as it left the Catholics to be a minority in Northern Ireland. The present predicament in Northern Ireland which started in 1968 has left many killed as a result of sectarian violence. 1968 was a significant year for many countries around because a lot of countries were on the verge of revolution. In Northern Ireland civil right marches began in 1968 against the discrimination of the Catholics. After partition the Catholics had a very hard time in Northern Ireland and so they finally decided to fight back, when they saw that civil rights marches worked in the USA. In this essay I will be showing you how the British Government tried to deal with the Irish troubles since 1972 and how successful they were at there job. The British made many attempts to try and end the 'troubles' in Ireland and I will be writing about each of them.

After 'Bloody Sunday' in 1972 the British government decided to introduce direct rule. Direct rule was put in place because the government in Northern Ireland did not handle the 'Bloody Sunday' situation very well and the British believed that direct rule was the best way to try and put and end to all the troubles. With direct rule in place the British Government could control all the situations in Ireland in Westminster. It meant that the British government could take action at last against all of the violence and the interrogation of the people.

Power sharing was the British government's first attempt at trying to stop the 'troubles' from continuing. The British believed that in 1974 a new scheme needed to be put in place to insure that both the Catholic nationalists and the Protestant unionist both got a fair share of the power in Northern Ireland. The British believed that a new government needed to be introduced to allow both religions a chance to vote and campaign. For the very first time in Irish history the Catholics and the Protestants had to work together and share there power. The British would make sure that voting would be equal and this would then decide the amount of power each party would hold. In June 1973 the British held elections that were fair, most of the Catholic votes went to the social democratic labour party (SDLP). However the Protestants votes were not conclusive as the extreme unionists were against power-share but the moderate unionist favoured power sharing. I believe that power-sharing is a good idea but it may not work for Northern Ireland because the Protestants and the Catholics there had been fighting for so long they may continue to do so and therefore never come to any agreements.

The pro-sharing Unionists joined with the SDLP and the British politicians and agreed that Power sharing was needed and so in 1973 they agreed a plan for power sharing this was known as The Sunningdale Agreement. Southern Ireland began to take part in the talks they agreed with power sharing and finally they started to recognise Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom which was something they had never wanted to do before. A legislative body was then set up that held members of the public from both North and South, they discussed matters of everyday concerns and worry's.

The power sharing agreement was very big progress for Northern Ireland as for so many years the Catholics and Protestants would not even be in the same room, let alone working together side by side. The power sharing executive took over on the 1st of January 1974 headed by the Unionist leader Brian Faulkner and the SDLP leader Gerry Fitt as the deputy leader. Power sharing did not pull off as in five months power sharing was no longer happening. Before the plan was even put into action many people mostly the Protestants had been sceptical about the scheme. The Protestant Unionists were not happy with the fact that the Catholics were allowed to share the power that before they rightly owned. They didn't want the Catholics to have the right to help run Northern Ireland. Some Nationalist also didn't agree with the power sharing agreement as they still believed that Ireland should be a completely independent republic. The worries of the politicians fighting did not occur though as they got to know each other and they began to work very well together.
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In May 1974 the Ulster workers council who were Protestants began a strike for the general public. What they wanted to do was break down the power sharing Executive. Protestants still held most of the key jobs in Northern Ireland and they wanted to show not only the Catholics but the British that they had the real power in the North. The strike meant that roads were blocked and electricity supplies were very limited. Within a couple of days the power stations began to close as all there usual workers were gone. After two weeks Northern Ireland had ...

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