James then went to Londonderry, and fought the Protestants. When approached the City, it almost fell without a Fight. However at the last moment, the apprentice boys shut the gates to the city. This caused a long siege from April to July, where the citizens to suffered terribly.
The Siege allowed enough time for William to send his forces to Ireland. These included troops sent by the head of Roman Catholic Church, Alexander pope.
William defeated James at the battle of Boyne in 1890, but his troops weren’t defeated until the following year.
The Boyne war officially ended with the Penal law in October 1691, which was made by William. Protestants wanted to be more powerful in Ireland and forced William to make sure Protestants were secure.
The Penal law made catholic citizens suffer greatly, and caused them to feel isolated and under privileged. It restricted their rights to own property, leading Catholics to be forced onto the streets. Also, they were restricted from education, weapons and a job with the Law or Government. This would have also made Catholics feel very hateful and resentful towards Protestants, because Catholics rightly felt that they should have the same treatment as Protestants.
King Williams Victory at the battle of Boyne is celebrated in marches and murals today, 300 years later. This reminds the Catholics how they were wrongly restricted and deprived from their well being. The Battle of Boyne Parades is almost mocking Catholics of the Protestants victory, and brings up unwanted memories.
The partition in Ireland took place between 1920 and 1922.
When The IRA began the Guerilla war in 1919, the British Prime Minister Lloyd George was involved in re-drawing the map of Europe and the world after the First World War.
However, Later George turned his attention to Ireland. He had some empathy towards the Protestants, but he had no time or violence, or law breaking, causing him to send troops into Ireland from Britain. His plan was to crush the IRA, reach an acceptable deal with the Catholics and then plan a settlement with Sinn Fein. However, this didn’t go as well as he hoped. This was because the troops from Britain couldn’t defeat the IRA, and also because Lloyd George couldn’t settle an agreement with the Catholics.
Lloyd George soon changed his plans of conflict with Ireland, when his allies, America, did not approve.
The first agreement Lloyd George made was that the remaining 26 countries would become self governing, with a parliament in Dublin. Also, Britain would keep control of issues such as the military, naval facilities etc, and Ulster’s 9 counties would become self governed and named Northern Ireland. Protestants reluctantly accepted this Act. It was a disappointment to them that the whole of Ireland would not remain as part of the United Kingdom. However, they were afraid that the London government would give in to the Catholics.
The main issue for the Protestants was which counties would be in the new state of Northern Ireland. Many Protestants wanted it to be all nine counties which belonged to Britain, however, this would have created an even bigger conflict with the Catholics. This caused the population to be split equally. The fact that the leader of Ireland was on the Protestants side, and Britain was going to be part of Ireland, caused a huge amount of anger for the Catholics.
After a while, Lloyd George had to make a new Treaty. The Catholics and Protestants still weren’t happy, and were reacting to each other in a violent manner. Lloyd George was told he would have to spend £100 million to destroy the IRA, and send in another 100,000 troops. He was also getting bad criticism from all over the world, especially the USA.
The final treaty was when the 26 counties of Ireland would become the Irish Free State, with its own administrator. The British forces were to leave the Free State, leaving them with their own army, Police, flag and passports. However, a boundary Commission would decide exactly where the border went between Northern Ireland and the Free State should be.
For the great majority, the new treaty was good enough, because it brought hope of peace. In 1922, the people of the Free State voted decisively in favour of the Treaty. However, the IRA didn’t agree with the terms and within a short time the Free State was involved in a bitter war which lasted until May 1923.
On Sunday 30 January 1972 the bloody Sunday took place. The northern civil rights association organized a march to protest against the continuation of without trial in Northern Ireland. Fifteen thousand people joined the protest which was then prevented from entering the city centre by members of the British Army. Troops of the parachute regiment tried to seal of the area, but were met by youths throwing stones at them. As a consequence, 13 marchers were shot. The soldiers responsible for the deaths and injuries justified their actions by insisting that they had come under sustained gun and bomb attack by members of the IRA and only fired at people in possession of weapons. However, other citizens who witnessed the event provided evidence that ran contrary to the evidence given by the soldiers. According to these civilian testimonies none of those killed or injured had any guns or bombs. The inquiry which was soon followed was lead by Lord Widgery who criticized the shooting by the troops ‘boarding on reckless, and no action was taken against the soldiers. The controversy was still raging 26years later as they felt it was a ‘white wash’ and a cover up and the current Prime minister, Tony Blair, announced a new inquiry.
The events of 'Bloody Sunday' caused a lot of shock and revulsion at an international level and the killings resulted in an increase of support for the Catholics in general. The strength of feeling was demonstrated when a crowd of protestors burnt the British embassy in Dublin on 2 February 1972. These events also strengthened the argument and more lead to more violence causing the British to send more troops to Ireland. Catholics felt that defending their communities was no longer enough and wanted the IRA to attack and push the British out of Ireland all together.
All three of these events which took place due to the dispute between Catholics and Protestants, are clearly important. However, out of the three events I talked about, Partition was the most important as it set up a long term consequence, and it also gave a solution to the dispute. It’s also important because without the Partition, disagreements wouldn’t have been made, and the bloody Sunday wouldn’t have taken place.