“Oh St Patrick’s Day will be jolly and gay,
And we will kick all the Protestants out of the way,
If that won’t do
We’ll cut them in two
And send them to hell with their
Red, white and blue.”
Again, I think that it isn’t surprising that Protestants get annoyed and aggressive towards Catholics if songs like this are being sung.
The Protestants say it is part of their tradition and that is the only reason that they do it. William gave the vacant land of the fleeing Catholics that sided with James to Protestant settlers so some Catholics remained on the poorest land.
After the Battle of the Boyne, Penal Laws were introduced to make sure that Catholics didn’t get any power and that they stayed poor whilst Protestants lived in prosperity. The Test Act of 1673 states “…be it enacted that every person that shall bear any office or offices, civil or military…in service or employment of his majesty…shall take the several oaths of supremacy and allegiance.
…and be it further enacted that all persons that do neglect or refuse to take the said oaths and sacrament shall be adjudged incapable and disabled in law to have the said office or employment”.
However, some Irish Protestant businessmen also suffered because certain laws protected English businessmen from competition. For instance, Protestant businessmen were not free to trade with whom they liked. These laws didn’t always keep rebels down. One such example is Wolfe Tone who surprisingly was an Anglican who sympathised with the Catholics. In 1798 he led a rebellion against the English because he believed that Ireland should be a free state and everybody should live in equality. The British Government troops killed tens of thousands of rebels even as they fled.
After the rebellion, the 1800 Act of Union united Ireland to Britain and so the Union Flag was created. Many Catholics were not happy about being joined to Britain but they had no choice. Daniel O’Connell, a Catholic lawyer, stood against a British government minister and won in an election. To the seething anger of the Catholics, O’Connell wasn’t admitted to the British Parliament as an MP. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland appointed by the British Parliament stated “such is the extraordinary power of their agitators, that they could lead on the people to open rebellion at a moment’s notice, and their organisation is such, that in the hands of desperate and intelligent leaders I believe their success inevitable”. This was his warning to the British Government that O’Connell’s exclusion could lead to trouble from the Catholics.
Catholics could vote if they owned or rented land on which they paid 40 shillings tax a year. If they voted differently to their Protestant landlords, however, they risked eviction.
The famine of 1845-6 was caused by the potato crop failing. Ireland was made up mostly of peasant farmers and they survived almost entirely on potatoes. A million people died in the potato famine and more than a million tried to emigrate to America and Canada. The majority were Catholic but the reason so many suffered was probably caused by “A people whose land and lives are…in the keeping and custody of others, instead of their own, are not in a position of common safety. The Irish famine of ’46 is example and proof. The corn crops were sufficient to feed the island. But the landlords would have their rents in spite of the famine, and in defiance of fever. They took the whole harvest and left hunger to those who raised it. Had the people of Northern Ireland been the landlords of Ireland, not a single human creature would have died of hunger” according to Irish reformer James Fintan Lalor. The majority of Catholics felt the same way as Lalor and hated the Protestants and British Government even more.
The Fenians were the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Irish nationalists. A rising was planned in 1867 but a traitor betrayed them and the leaders were arrested. Two of them eventually escaped but three of the Irishmen that aided in the ambush to rescue their leaders were caught and executed. They became national Irish heroes known as the Manchester Martyrs. The British thought otherwise and compared the Fenians to Guy Fawkes whom they hated.
These events led to the Easter rising of 1916 when 1600 nationalist men took most of Dublin and established their headquarters at the General Post Office. Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders, declared an Independent Ireland. Within 48 hours, British troops outnumbered the rebels twenty to one. The rebels surrendered and the leaders were sentenced to death by firing squad. The Catholics were outraged by the death sentences and became even more infuriated by the decisions made by the British Government. Sinn Fein then got a lot of its supporters from the angry Catholic public because of the executions. Sinn Fein won the majority of Irish seats in the parliament but refused to attend and made its own government, Dail Eirann. The Dail Eirann declared an Independent Republic, but the British Government refused this. Again this angered the Catholics.
In 1919 the IRA was formed and began attacks on the police, the RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary). Their aim was to force the British Government to make Ireland independent. Many policemen were threatened by the IRA that they should resign from the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary, formed after the partition). Many did. The ‘Black and Tans’ and Auxiliary military forces were sent in by the British Government to keep order. These forces were ex-soldiers and ex-officers and they were ruthless. Many Protestant Unionists were supportive of the British in their war against the Irish Nationalists and attacked Catholics in mobs. The Protestants felt bitter and angry towards the Nationalists because of their attacks against the police and the Catholics felt the same way about the Unionist mob attacks against Catholics.
The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 aimed to settle this war by a temporary partition of the six North Eastern counties of Ulster that had a majority of English and Scottish Protestants from the twenty-six other counties in the South. The Unionists weren’t entirely happy with this but they went along with it whereas the Nationalists still wanted a United Independent Ireland.
By 1921 the War for Independence left many dead or wounded. This amounted to 1800 British dead or wounded and 1618 IRA men dead or wounded. The British offered a peace treaty and Michael Collins, then head of the IRA, signed it saying “I am signing my death warrant”. He was right. He was later ambushed by Anti-Treaty Republicans and shot dead. In 1923 the Anti-Treaty Republicans led by de Valera were defeated and the Civil War ended.
De Valera’s party won the General Election in 1932 and changed the Irish Free State to Eire. The new constitution gave special importance to the Roman Catholic Church. In 1948 de Valera’s plans for a Republic of Ireland were realised. Protestant Unionists still couldn’t stand Catholics and certainly didn’t want to become part of a Catholic United Ireland.
By the 1950s Catholics still lived in much worse conditions than Protestants in Northern Ireland. Catholics had a much higher unemployment rate, lived in run down houses and had fewer civil rights. In county Fermanagh where over half the population was Catholic the County Council employed 370 people and 332 were Protestant. The school bus driver was a favourite job because of its long rests and holidays, only seven out of seventy-five were Catholic. Out of 52 Councillors, 35 were Protestant Unionist Councillors. This shows serious Protestant discrimination against the Catholics and gerrymandering (rigging of constitution electives so that the Catholics were under-represented) by the Protestants. These are yet more reasons for Catholics to feel bitter towards Protestants.
NICRA, Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association which anyone could join made a non-violent protest in Derry to get civil rights. In 1968, they planned to walk through Londonderry which hadn’t seen a Catholic march for 20 years. The march was banned but it still went ahead. The RUC and ‘B-Specials’ – or riot police – clubbed men, women and children which greatly angered the Catholics. NICRA gained much support from the many viewers that saw the violent methods of the RUC. Protestants and Paisleyites ambushed a similar march the following year with bricks, bottles, lathes and cudgels. All this happened whilst a policeman looked on. A mob of policemen entered the Catholic area of Derry and kicked doors, broke windows and beat up anyone they saw. The actions of the RUC seriously discredited them and gave Catholics many supporters. For the first time, through the media, everyone could see what was happening in Ireland and at that time I think, as did many others, that the Catholics were being severely discriminated against.
Again, in 1969, bombs were laid at first thought by the IRA but later found to be by the UVF. The Orangemen marches increased tension among the Catholics and the Battle of the Bogside ensued in Derry as the Orangemen approached. The violence spread to Belfast where the Protestant’s siege mentality led them to enter Catholic homes and burn them down. The confrontation lasted two days and two nights. The British troops entered the city and the fighting stopped. The Catholics saw the British Army as heroes whereas the Protestants looked upon the troops with hostility. The British Government realised that the Northern Ireland Stormont Government was a failure in its policies and the Cameron Report showed this. The Protestants were upset by the report and continued to look upon the British with hostility. Another report was published and this criticised the RUC and disbanded the ‘B-Specials’. Violent protests broke out and the British Army killed two Protestants.
The next year the IRA split. Again there were more riots after the Orange Marches and this time the British Army used CS gas against the Catholics. This was a mistake for the Army as it helped the Provisional IRA recruit members.
In 1971 the IRA shot a British soldier who was the first British soldier to be killed and the Army moved up its campaign. Regular searches of Catholics were carried out and this provoked further violence and three Scottish soldiers were murdered in Belfast. Internment (imprisonment without trial) was introduced and 226 were interned, only two were Protestant, the Catholic were extremely annoyed and many, many Catholics supported the IRA.
Bloody Sunday was the worst tragedy up to that point in the history of the Irish Conflict. On Sunday 30 January 1972, a Civil Rights march through Derry ended in disaster when the Army opened fire on the crowd and shot dead 13 unarmed civilians. The British Government feared a complete breakdown in law and order, so it suspended the Stormont Government and took direct control in London.
Barricades were put down to keep Catholics and Protestants apart but the British troops took them away. The IRA planted its first major car bomb in Belfast killing 9 and injuring more than 100 people. For the next few years the IRA kept up its bombing campaign which spread to England to get the British public’s attention. The angered UVF wanted revenge so they blew up a pop group’s car believing the group to be all-Catholic. In an IRA bomb attack a member of the Royal Family was killed to make people around the world more aware of the problems in Northern Ireland.
The IRA deployed a new tactic: hunger strikes in the British prisons that held IRA members. With each death more violence came and it seemed as though it couldn’t be stopped. The idea of an intergovernmental conference between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was introduced and accepted by most although some Protestant Unionists and some Irish Nationalists disagreed. The IRA continued to attack British civilians and military personnel.
A major breakthrough in 1994 saw IRA announce an unconditional cease-fire after 25 years of bloodshed. The Protestant extremist groups also agreed to a cease-fire. During peace talks the British reduced its patrols in Belfast. In 1995 the British and Irish Prime Ministers produced a written framework for Peace negotiations. It proposed a cross-border parliament representing the North and Republic of Ireland. Everything seemed to calm down and the Protestants and Catholics seemed to be living in harmony with each other until the controversial decision to release the British convicted murderer of a Belfast teenager. Catholics were appalled by this decision and mass riots followed in Belfast and Londonderry, this was the first violence since the start of the negotiations. The peace process hit its first major obstacle and it wasn’t helped by John Major’s - then British Prime Minister - insistence on the IRA decommissioning its weapons before peace talks continued. The IRA and Sinn Fein rejected the deal and a frustrated IRA called an end to the cease-fire. A bomb later exploded at Canary Wharf as did two more bombs later in the week. Peace rallies prompted the Prime Ministers to continue with the peace negotiations but the IRA admitted responsibility for two more bombs. Most recently, the Omagh bomb killed yet more people but reduced a considerable amount of Catholics supporters to the IRA out of the disgust for what they had done to the civilian casualties.
The President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton, has been putting pressure on the Irish and British Governments to eventually find peace as a non-biased referee to the peace process. He claims he is of Irish descent and the Irish that emigrated in the famine of 1845 make up a large part of his voters. George Mitchell has had a similar role as independent arbitrator.
The DUP do have a large number of followers but as a party they are not in a powerful position. They don’t want to have anything to do with Catholics so they are not very helpful in the peace process.
The Protestants fear Irish Unity because they could be outvoted by Catholics and lose control over the education of their children, freedom from some kinds of censorship and freedom to make personal decisions on moral questions such as contraception and abortion.
At the moment, Protestants outnumber Catholics by three to two but with the current trend of catholic to protestant birth rates, it is thought that Catholics could outnumber Protestants around the year 2050 in Northern Ireland. Catholic political parties could then have the majority. This is because the Roman Catholic Church won’t allow contraception, therefore the Catholic birth rate is higher than that of the Protestants. Even if Catholics were allowed to use contraception, they might still have large families for cultural reasons. In this scenario, if the Protestants’ aim is to be politically represented by a Protestant political group, they are heading for defeat. They can’t win either way. If there is a United Ireland, Protestants will be outnumbered by Catholics and if Northern Ireland stays as it is in its present state Protestants will be outnumbered by Catholics.
I think that peace is possible but I believe that it may take a generation or two for it to be complete. All the above illustrate the complexity of the Irish Question. The conflict went beyond religious differences long ago. There are many scars that will not heal for a considerable number of years. There has been so much violence and history has shown that violence generally breeds more violence. Yet there is hope. The Irish population as a whole doesn’t want any more bloodshed. This was publicly demonstrated by the widespread rejoicing that followed the Good Friday Agreement. As the peace process stands, the next step would be for the IRA to either decommission weapons and the complete withdrawal of the British Army from Northern Ireland. A lot therefore rests upon the political parties involved. I believe that a major factor towards eventual peace is through the education of the younger generation. It is important to understand that whilst children are brought up in a climate of hatred and revenge, the feud is likely to go on. Tolerance and respect for one another must be nurtured at an early age but also forgiveness and the recognition of suffering on both sides. Personally I think that this is only possible if both Protestant and Catholic children are educated together. However it is reported that currently, less than 1% of schools in Ireland are mixed. Here again it is the responsibility of whoever is in power to work at developing mixed education. As a final thought, despite the complexity of the conflict I do not believe that there has been so much hurt and so much violence that Protestants and Catholics will never live in peace.
