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 led to Sinn Fein
winning seat in West Minster which they refused. Refusing the seats seemed to
further increase Sinn Fein’s popularity as it showed they would not give up on
their cause or cooperate with the British, also in 1919 Sinn Fein declared
themselves to be Dail Eireann (Government of Ireland) and they wished the
island of Ireland to be independent from the British Empire, so refusing the
seats cut their ties with England. By this time the Protestants were getting so
worried about the support Sinn Fein received that many more began joining the
UVF and many similar parties making the violence increase even more. The last
option to control the violence was the Deployment of the troops which came
next. All The Easter Rising’s consequences had their impact on shaping modern
day Ireland but in my opinion the most important was the formation of the IRA
in 1919, the sheer violence this group brought to Ireland was unimaginable and
made much worse when they split in 1969 and the more violent Provisional IRA
was formed, the terror they brought to people daily life in Ireland in the
1970’s, 80’s and 90’s was incredible. In the 1970’s the amount of people who
were needed to join the IRA increased, in turn the deaths of British soldiers
increased this meant a lot of violence both in Northern Ireland and England,
also the Ira began to frequently bomb commercial targets such as shops and
more commonly cars this would have led to such fear in people’s lives not
knowing if going to the corner shop would be the last thing they ever did. In the
1980’s the violence just escalated one of the many events to happen in the 80’s
was a train bomb in which three people were killed ironically one was a member
of the IRA also in march 1980 it was announced that no-one who had been
proven to have ever belonged to a paramilitary organisation would be no
entitlement to special category status meaning even reformed people had lost
that opportunity, but then again what impact is bigger than splitting the country
in the formation of Northern Ireland and Eire we did more then split a country
we split people, connections and allies, this still has a big impact in the present
day, as there is still violence in Northern Ireland. On-The-Other-Hand the least
important although still crucial was the damage created even with £25 million
worth the issue went away with minimal repercussions. David Lloyd George’s
decision even though at the time thought of as the best in my opinion made the
situation worse by sending the black and tans in he created a lot of the violence
himself, as the saying goes you can’t fight fire with fire, David Lloyd George
seemed to have tried and lost.
The Deployment of the troops, seemed like the perfect solution, send the
troops in to control the violence, as it was escalating and needed to stopped, a
young catholic was killed in 1966 by the UVF because the Catholic population
were once again celebrating the anniversary of the Easter Rising which spurred
protestants on to re-form the UVF leading to the death of this boy. Also the
PM of Ireland O’Neill resigned as he did not have unionist support leaving people
looking for answers and the only place they could find them was the militants
(violent groups). So sending the troops in would make Ireland a safe place to
live, and make England’s life easier, and that work for a short time to. Until
disaster struck in the form of the IRA splitting, forming the provisional IRA
consisting of members of the original IRA who thought they weren’t being
violent enough to make things happen, this was a big problem because it meant
that the provisional IRA were so violent that even the IRA its self thought it
was excessive, these attacks lost innocent lives and caused protestants to
retaliate bringing more violence. From 1969 until 1997, the Provisional Irish
Republican Army (Provisional IRA) conducted an armed campaign (or guerrilla
war) in the United Kingdom aimed at overthrowing British rule in Northern
Ireland to create a united Ireland this involved killing so many innocent people
and endangering countless lives. The Majority of the violence happened after
this, the troops just being there made the IRA attack them as the IRA felt
that this was their country and England should not be in control. To try and stop
this violence the troops searched catholic homes looking for everything from
weapons to hidden members of the IRA, which again angered the IRA and it just
continued. The provisional IRA bombing the troop made them a lot more popular
as they were one of the few seen to be doing something to get the troops out of
Ireland, and led them to declare them self the protectors of the Catholics, with
such a violent group named as there protectors the protestants had to so the
same and create their own paramilitaries’ to fight back bring yet more violence
into the country. Even with the Provisional IRA the troops continued to search
catholic homes making them feel very unfairly treated. The Troops in Ireland
also brought with them something else, Interment (The act of placing a person
or large group in prison without trial) which led to a lot of civil rights marches
to try and abolish this rule as it meant any person guilty or not could be placed
in prison. This naturally led to bloody Sunday (As this was a match against
internment). Bernadette Devlin (a member of the people’s Democracy) said that
sending the troops into Ireland would create peace which it did for a short
while. The decision to send to send the troop into Ireland was down to Harold
Wilson, who at first ignored the situation in Ireland which showed Ireland and
England alike that he didn’t care he instead put pressure on O’Neil (Prime
minister of Ireland)to improve the discrimination against Catholics in N. Ireland.
Even though the Troops being in Ireland was supposed to settle things down it
seemed to have the opposite effect and inflamed the situation intensifying the
gap between Catholics and Protestants as the troops appeared to have a very
negative attitude towards the Catholics by doing such things as giving more
privileges to protestants and just generally showing there like for protestants
and dislike for Catholics. Not to go as far as saying they were biased but they
seemed to favour the Protestants. To most people’s opinion the deployment of
troops is the lesser of the three evils but this affected every ones daily lives,
nail bombs went off in the streets injuring many completely innocent people to
me that has much more of an impact than an event that lasted a day. The
repercussions of the troops last to this day people having to live with injuries
gained from bomb attacks, the money needed to repair damaged property, land
and towns and finally the grief families that relatives have died in this never
ending battle are going through will never go away. The most important of the
consequences was defiantly the splitting of the IRA the provisional IRA just
spurred on all the violence and were at the centre of most, and educating young
Catholics that this was the only way to solve their problems made a whole
generations of violence. The least important has to be Internment even though
this directly led to bloody Sunday and rendered many innocent people in prison,
looking at the other consequences it seems to be in a matter of speaking the
mildest. The troop’s impact was mainly that the continued and escalated the
violence being one half of an endless number of fights. Damage to people and
property meant more hard ship for Ireland for years after the event while they
found the money for repairs hospital fees and so on.
The last of the events Bloody Sunday is the most controversial, and some
of the events are not known truly today. There are many reasons why bloody
Sunday came about but some of the most important are the violence that
occurred because of internment. Internment its self boosted support for the
IRA because they tried to do everything in their power to stop it; they even
helped residents make barricades to keep the troops out. However this allowed
the IRA to train new recruits and in September 1971 loyalists in Northern
Ireland formed the UDA (Ulster Defence Association) which responded to the
IRA’s violence by killing ordinary Catholics which the IRA fought back to and
the violence in Ireland once again escalated. So, marching against internment
was not only going to protect people from being arrested but stop the violence
and even the IRA’s attacks on England. It all began with a peaceful march
against internment that started in Londonderry it had at least 15,000 people all
ignoring the ban the troops had put on marching. The march was going peacefully
well until they had to be re-routed and a number of the civilian got confused and
started up an argument with the troops. One thing led to another and the
civilians started throwing stones and the troops started shooting with
supposedly rubber bullets. But the rubber bullets were real and led to the death
of 13 people. An investigation into what happened, took place and the official
report said the troops were innocent. Although the queen herself gave praise to
the troops for killing these people, there is still currently a re-investigation
taking place so tensions at the moment are very high in Ireland while a decision
is being made if the troops are named guilty the uproar from England would be
unbelievable but if they are found innocent the violence that the Irish would
bring back would bring “the troubles” to the present day. The death of so many
catholic innocents gave young Catholics the push they needed to join the IRA as
they saw it as the only way to remove the troops. This meant an increase in
violence as the IRA then went on the attack; there was more terrorism, more
weapons, and more deaths therefore more troops. After the young Catholics
joined the IRA they seemed to be a lot more extreme political parties becoming
popular in 2002 there was an election for the Northern Ireland assembly which
an extremist party won and a country already in shambles was being run by two
parties who couldn’t agree on anything therefore the country went without
leadership and guidance, forcing people to again turn to terrorism for answers.
With two parties in the assembly that wouldn’t back down there was a lot of
arguing that never could be resolved so the Northern Ireland assembly
collapsed, having resoled little to nothing. The US increased their funding to
the IRA meaning they could make more weapons and be better prepared for
fight with the troops. That also meant there was an increase in attacks on
England e.g. Harrods and on Margaret Thatcher, England fought back by sending
in yet more troops which again led the IRA to attack. In my opinion the situation
could have been handled much better by simply getting all the facts before
making a decision on who was at fault here, by saying that the troops were right
in what they did England lost any connections it had with the Catholics
community. The most important consequences in this event has to be the
suspending of Stormont, after the event took place the British applied direct
rule on Northern Ireland which is where they run the country from
Westminster. This is the most important as Catholics and especially the IRA
didn’t like their country being controlled by England therefore there was again a
rise in violence. Also those ruling from Westminster couldn’t possibly rule
effectively because who can do what’s right if they can’t see what’s wrong? The
least Important has to be the dissolving of the B-specials, as this didn’t have a
huge impact it was mealy replaced with the Ulster Defence Regiment and they
took over the job of protecting the people. Overall Bloody Sunday hit the people
hardest as it was all put on live TV so it was seen not only by Northern Ireland
but England, which placed the English government in a difficult position as now
they had to please not on northern Ireland but their own nation.
The most important to me was the deployment of the troops. It may seems
to some the least catastrophic, but this didn’t end after a day or a week it
lasted years affecting people’s daily lives. There came a point where people
couldn’t go shopping for fear there would be a nail bomb inside, a lot of innocent
people were killed and injured just for being in the wrong place at the wrong
time. The Vicious circle of violence that occurred, with the troops there the
IRA couldn’t settle they wanted them out so they attacked by planting bombs
that were killing normal people. This forced the troops to search homes meaning
the Catholics who own the homes were under scrutiny, injured if they denied
access and if they were found to be harbouring an IRA member they faced
Internment. It’s had the most impact on the modern day Northern Ireland as
there are still may people living with wounds acquired from bombs people who
have lost love ones to the troops attacks. This was the only consequences that
there was conflict between the Catholics themselves, people were punished by
their own parties for being civilized towards the situation. Also if the troops
were never sent in it’s unlikely that there would have ever been a bloody Sunday.
Although many think the others had the most impact, Easter rising did so much
damage, but in the long run its amount of long term consequences is significantly
less than the other two events. Also Bloody Sunday is still very controversial so
to pass judgment on its impact would be quite flawed but because of the
absence of the truth from this situation it seems to have been inflamed.
However it still has significantly less long term consequences then short term
meaning it made minimal lasting damage to modern day Ireland. Nevertheless I
would say that the most damage made to Ireland was plantation, if this had
never happened then there wouldn’t haven’t been protestants in Ireland to
cause this conflict and when protestants did eventually go over they wouldn’t be
in places of power and unable to take away catholic rights.