History Coursework: The continuing problems in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland. A country within a country, torn apart by warfare, allegiance and religion. A country whose problems reach deep into the roots of history. Northern Ireland’s problems began as far back as the early 16th century, when English settlers wished to control Ireland. The English settlers were Protestant, but the people of Ireland were devout Catholics. Throughout the 16th and 17th century, there were power struggles between the clan chiefs, effectively dividing the whole country. However, in July 1690, William of Orange, the catholic leader of England, clenched a famous victory over James II, the former protestant king of England in the Battle of the Boyne. Ireland became a wholly Protestant ruled country. While this incident did not cause the modern day problems in Ireland, it certainly laid the foundations for it.
Move forward just over three hundred years, to April 24th 1916, where the citizens of Dublin should have been celebrating a peaceful Easter Monday. However, this Easter Monday would be completely different from anything they had ever experienced before. The Irish nationalists, enraged that the Irish problem was being ignored in favour of World War II, decided to strike back at the British government and bring the Irish problem into the public spotlight. James Connolly’s Citizen Army and about 1200 IRB volunteers marched into the center of Dublin and took over various strategic positions, such as many train stations, the College of Surgeons, and the GPO. However, just one week later, the rebellion failed at the hands of British troops, who re-took Dublin from the rebels, and executed the rebel leaders. James Connolly, the last leader to be executed, had been wounded in the leg when fighting. The wound had become infected with gangrene, and Connolly was already dying when he was executed. Wounded, dying and unable to stand, Connolly was sat down on a chair in the center on Dublin and executed. In my opinion, this was the most important event in the recent history of Ireland. The fighting and execution consequences would lay the foundations for most of the problems in Ireland up until the present day. This one act created more anti-British feeling than anything else, turned many people against the Unionists and most importantly, gave the Nationalists a martyr. However, the consequences of the Easter Rising proved to reach much further into the Irish conflict than anyone could have imagined. The sympathy from the country, and indeed, the rest of the world, now lay mainly with Sinn Fein and the Nationalists, so that in 1919, when Sinn Fein declared themselves to be Dail Eireann, or the government of Ireland, many people supported them, instead of the British government. This bold move by the Nationalists alarmed Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, as did it alarm the Unionists in Ulster. However, the Unionists were not happy with just this it seems. Eamon De Valera, the leader of Sinn Fein, decided that if the British government was forced to withdraw from Ireland, the Unionists would agree to an independent Ireland. The IRA began a huge and remorseless guerrilla war against the Royal Irish Constabulary. The IRA attacked the RIC for a variety of reasons: To gain access to the IRC’s weapons or weapons that they may be guarding; to destroy the British intelligence network, and to discourage any form of collaboration with the British. However, the British government retaliated with a force of men called the Black and Tans. What resulted was a long and brutal urban war. By 1921, the war had reached a point where both sides were in a stalemate. Divisions were forming between the nationalists, the Irish were getting fed up with the conflict and the British government was being crippled by questions about its foreign policies. From the responses to these executions and the IRA’s bombing campaign, Lloyd George came up with an inventive solution. Partition. However, this left the problem of discrimination. In Northern Ireland, the almost wholly Protestant government consolidated its power through underhand tactics, such as Gerry Mandering, making sure that it won every election, allowing it to continue discriminating against the Catholic minority. In response to this blatant segregation, the Civil Rights Movement was set up.
