In the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the IRB armed themselves and formed the Irish volunteers and a second group known as the Irish Citizen Army formed as a result of the police violence that had been used against transport strikers earlier in the year. When Britain went to war with Germany later that year many of the men of Southern Ireland volunteered for the British army. The war with Germany would also play another role in the history of Ireland two years later with the 1916 Easter Rising when the Irish Volunteers planned to take control of the capital Dublin. They believed this would be an easy task because the British government were too distracted by the war with Germany to pay much attention to Ireland and Home Rule. However the plan did not work as expected the British navy had captured a German boat that was carrying 20000 rifles for the volunteers, however this did not stop the attack on the capital Dublin going ahead. The plan did not work and the attack on Dublin was a total failure. More civilians had been killed than British soldiers and police and 2.5 million pounds of damage was done to buildings etc. This caused the Irish people to dislike the rebels when once they had been sympathetic to their cause. After the capture of the rebels they were marched away by the British soldiers and were verbally abused by the civilian population. The support of the British army by the Irish civilians soon wore off when the men responsible for the Easter Rising were executed.
After the partition of Ireland in 1922 when Ireland and Northern Ireland split many Irish nationalists were still living in Ulster so the troubles were not over. The Catholic minority had measures taken against them to ensure Unionist control of Northern Ireland, measures like the police being allowed to recruit extra police called the B-specials many of who were ex Ulster volunteers. The B-specials treated the Catholic civilians harshly and over the course of a few years came to be hated by the Catholic community. Control was also ensured politically so even when the Protestants were in the minority they would be sure to win the vote because the vote was restricted to homeowners only. This ruled out most of the poorer Catholics and boundaries were drawn to secure the maximum number of Protestant councillors. This was a process called gerrymandering.
The results of gerrymandering meant that the Unionist councils favoured the Protestant community in matters of employment and council housing. It became apparent to the Catholic community that they could not improve their poor living conditions so by the early 1960s the Catholic community started campaigning for social justice. That year a new Prime Minister of Northern Ireland had been elected. Terence O’Neill promised a reform of the way Northern Ireland was governed trying to fix many of the long term problems of housing and employment, so that all citizens of Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant alike would have equal rights, however these reforms were slow to come and as a result the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was formed and so the main triggers that would lead to the deployment of British troops in Northern Ireland had begun.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association caused the Protestants to believe that O’Neill’s attempts to improve relations between the two communities would cause them to lose supremacy in Northern Ireland. As a result of the Protestant’s fears the Orange Order and the UVF were revived. This marked the beginning of the troubles when Catholic buildings were attacked and several Catholics murdered. In 1968 the first civil rights march took place as a form of peaceful protest imitating the marches that had taken place in the USA these civil rights marches angered the unionists and nearly always ended in violence in which the police would often take sides and beat the Nationalists. Following the violence two new groups emerged The Derry Citizens Action Committee lead by John Hume and The Peoples Democracy lead by Bernadette Devlin.
The Peoples Democracy organised a march that would go from Belfast to Derry in January 1969. The riots were doomed to failure and before the marches had even left Derry thanks mainly to the reverend Ian Paisley who had stirred up strong hatred against the marchers and he urged them to confront the marches on the outskirts of Derry at Burntollet Bridge. When the march reached Burntollet Bridge the police and B-specials took no action to protect the civil rights marchers. After this many of the marches ended in violence and the police were powerless to stop it. Eventually after another night of riots in Belfast, which the police were unable to stop, the British government had no choice but to send in a neutral party that would protect the Nationalists and the Unionists as the army was not intended to stay in Northern Ireland long, but keeping the peace proved to be harder than anticipated. This was apparent on the 30th January 1972 Bloody Sunday when 13 marchers were shot dead when the unprovoked British army opened fire. This event among others caused the British army to be hated by the Catholic community who had once welcomed them as a neutral army who would protect the from the Protestants so the would no longer have to barricade themselves inside the Bogside area.
The British army is still in Northern Ireland to this day but why were they sent in? In the first place in my opinion the appointment of the B-specials as a volunteer police force was a major contributing factor as they would often take the side of the Protestants in riots causing more anger and hatred towards themselves and the Protestant community, which would in turn lead to more violence. So with a biased police force it would be almost impossible keeping the peace. Another major contributor to the violence is Ian Paisley who would stir up anger and hatred within the Protestant community against the Catholics, which would result in the violence. However, in my opinion the main factor which lead to the British army being sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 were the government policies such as gerrymandering which caused the Catholic community to be given poor housing and jobs, which in turn caused them to protest about the treatment they were receiving from local councils which would end up in violence which was mostly started by the Protestants and then this violence would be dealt with by a biased police force who could not keep the peace and would just end up contributing to the violence by taking the side of the Protestants.
So in conclusion it is my opinion that the government policies in Northern Ireland after 1922 and the partition of Ireland is a long-term problem that resulted in the deployment of troops by the British government in 1969.
