Which Of The Following Events Has Had The Biggest Impact On The History Of The Conflict In Ireland? Easter Rising 1916, Deployment Of Troops 1969, Bloody Sunday 1972

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Which Of The Following Events Has Had The Biggest Impact On The History Of The Conflict In Ireland? Easter Rising 1916, Deployment Of Troops 1969, Bloody Sunday 1972

     Each of the events has had its own major impact on the conflict in Ireland,

but to determine which once has had the biggest impact we must look at the

impact they have each had on shaping modern day Ireland.

      Easter Rising was the first of the three events to take place. There are

many reasons why it happened. One of worst was the bias shown by the British

officers that were meant to be keeping the peace in Ireland; they were seen to

be favouring the Protestants. Also with the Ulster Volunteers arming

themselves and with them being protestant, Catholics thought it necessary to

do something about the issue of Ireland’s freedom, however because of The

First World War it seemed to have been put on hold along with their promised

Home Rule. With Protestants being the known minority of Ireland but having

much more power, it was imminent that something was going happen and it did.

On the 24th April 1916 about one thousand two hundred members of the IRB

Volunteers and James Connolly’s Citizen Army led by 16 main leaders stormed

many buildings most of symbolic importance (e.g. the post office being the only

connection to long distance). With the English preoccupied with fighting in the

First World War Pearce and Connelly (leaders of the event) saw the opportunity

to plan an uprising. This was never planned to work it was merely the creation of

martyrs as Connelly was asked what were their chances of success and he

replied “we are going to be slaughtered”. After the event which took a week, all

sixteen leaders were shot dead. One of the worst consequences to come from

this event was in fact its main aim to create Martyrs, James Connelly and

Patrick Pearce (Catholics and members of the military council) were both killed

in the event. The creation of these Martyrs led to the yearly celebration of

their deaths, which in turn led to Protestants rebelling and celebrating their

own events the most famous of which is the anniversary of William of Orange

(King William the iii of England) who many Protestants heralded as a champion of

their faith as he punished Catholics. This then led to a lot more violence

between Catholics and Protestants leaving David Lloyd George no choice but to

send the Black and Tans in, to control the violence. Another serious consequence

was the reaction of the republicans when their leaders (Pearce and Connelly)

were shot. They rose with anger and this was a major factor in the IRA being

formed which again like every other consequences led to even more violence in

Ireland as the IRA were a catholic terrorist organisation which believed

violence was the answer to their problems. The IRA soon became out of control

and the only solution it seemed was to send in the troop which is the second of

the events. The relationship between England and Ireland took a big hit with the

unionists siding with England and the republicans siding with Ireland the

violence increased to extreme levels, this was also another reason why Lloyd

George sent the Black and Tans in. After the Black and Tans made little

deference, the Prime Minister desperate to find an end to the Irish conflict,

split Ireland (Or more precisely Ulster) in 1921. Meaning Belfast, Fermanagh,

Tyrone, Armagh, Down, Antrim and Londonderry became officially known as

Northern Ireland. However all of these counties had a significant percentage of

Catholics living there, and officially making Northern Ireland part of England

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led to more violence within the counties. With their martyrs shot Catholics were

encouraged to join group such as the Irish Volunteers, and with this new rise in

Catholic popularity many Protestants join their own version of the Irish

volunteers such as the UVF (Ulster volunteer force). With these two parties

fighting for opposite sides there was once again heavy violence in Ireland, this

is another reason why Lloyd George spilt Ireland. Eamon De Valera became

leader of Sinn Fein and made its popularity grow this then ...

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