Understanding the Irish conflict
For centuries, conflict set the Irish people against each other, and
against the English.
These issues were interwoven. They represented conflicting ideas of
personal and national identity.
Religion
Ireland has two main religious groups. The majority of Irish are Roman
Catholic, and a smaller number are Protestant (mostly Anglicans and
Presbyterians). However, there is a majority of Protestants in the
northern province of Ulster.
Politics
From the 12th century Ireland was ruled by the English. In the 19th
and early 20th centuries, the Irish settlers who came to New Zealand
were British citizens. But many Catholic Irish believed Ireland should
have its own government, independent of England and the British Crown.
They were known as nationalists. In contrast, Irish Protestants
generally supported British rule of Ireland. They were known as
loyalists.
In 1921, after an uprising against British rule, Ireland was divided
into two. Ulster, in the north, remained part of Britain. The rest of
Ireland achieved self-government within the British Empire, as the
Irish Free State. It became an independent republic outside the empire
in 1949.
Land
Irish Catholic peasants resented their land being taken by Anglo-Irish
Protestants. These people held power as landlords and supported
English rule. By the 1860s half of Ireland was owned by just 750
people, nearly all of them Protestants.
Events and groups mentioned in the Irish story
The Protestant ascendancy
In 1704 Catholics were excluded from political rights. By this time,
Catholics owned less than 10% of the land. During the 18th century
Protestants, who comprised only about 10% of the population,
established political and economic power as landlords.
The Orange Order
The Orange Order was set up in 1795 to defend Protestants against
Catholics in Ireland. The name comes from Protestant King William of
Orange, who defeated Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne
on 12 July 1690. This day is still celebrated by Irish Protestants.
The Fenians
In 1829 Catholics were allowed political representation. Despite this
concession, Irish nationalists began to push for political
independence and land reform. One group who argued for this in the
mid-1800s were the Fenians.
Sinn Fein
By the first decade of the 20th century the British government was
prepared to grant 'home rule' to Ireland. Those in Ulster, which had a
Protestant majority, opposed this and pushed for separation from the
rest of the country.
The First World War stalled progress, and in the Easter Rising of
April 1916, a group of radical nationalists known as the Sinn Fein
(meaning 'ourselves alone') seized the General Post Office in Dublin,
hoping to spark a revolution.
The Troubles
From the late 1960s a civil rights movement broke out in Ulster to
promote the political and social rights of the Irish Catholic minority
there. This led to violence with the involvement of the Irish
Republican Army (IRA) on the Catholic side and the Ulster Defence
Force (UDF) on the Protestant side.
After Ireland was Christianised in the 5th century, nothing happened
to disrupt the religious cohesion of the country until the Reformation
and, in particular, the intervention of the English Tudor dynasty in
the 16th century. Henry VIII, who had broken from the Roman Catholic
Church over a marital dispute, declared himself King of Ireland and
Head of the Church of Ireland in 1542 and presided over the
dissolution of the monasteries from which he derived considerable
funds for his European wars. Although he was forced to adopt a
conciliatory tone with the native Irish chieftains, he paved the way
for his daughter Elizabeth I to subjugate Ireland and for the Stuart
succession and Cromwell's Protectorate to colonise the island. With
the plantation of Ulster and the Cromwellian land settlement, most of
the land in Ireland passed from the native Catholic Irish to the
Protestant settlers.
In the 18th century, a series of Penal Laws was enacted whereby no
Catholic could sit in the Irish parliament, hold public office, vote
or practise law; as a result many of its most able men left the
country. In the latter half of the 18th century, when religious
fervour declined in England and a need for Irish recruits in foreign
wars arose, the long process of Catholic emancipation began which
culminated in the Relief Act of 1829.
The rise of Charles Stewart Parnell, ironically a Protestant
landowner, brought Irish Catholic nationalists into the British
parliament in some numbers and they succeeded in eventually getting a
Home Rule Bill enacted. The growth of Irish nationalism led eventually
to the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1921 which resulted in
the partition of the island. There were now in effect two Irish
nations; the mainly Catholic Free State to the south, and the mainly
Protestant Northern Ireland. De Valera, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister)
in the South, in his 1937 Constitution, reserved a special place for
the Catholic Church in the State; James Craig, Northern Ireland's
first Prime Minister at the time, declared a Protestant state for a
Protestant people.
Catholics in Northern Ireland did not identify with the new Protestant
state and felt cut off from their co-religionists in the South. Their
Church insisted on segregated education which did not unduly bother
unionists as Protestant clergy were not keen on integration either.
Before the liberalising influence of the Second Vatican Council,
aspects of Catholic doctrine did not lend themselves to promoting good
community relations. Catholics were not allowed to attend worship in
Protestant Churches and insisted that the children of mixed marriages
be brought up in the Catholic faith. In the late 1960s the Catholic
community supported the civil rights movement but when the IRA took up
arms the Catholic Church was their severest critic.
For centuries there has been conflict in Northern Ireland. The
disagreement
between Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants still continues to
this
day. In this assessment I am going to examine why soldiers were sent
into
Ireland in 1969.
Between 1921 and the mid 1960s Catholics in Northern Ireland faced
many
problems. After the War Of Independence, in 1919, the country of
Ireland was
divided into two parts; The North, here there was a large Protestant
Majority, each of the six Ulster counties had their own parliament and
their
own government. The South, largely occupied by Irish Catholics, most
opposed
the idea of dividing Ireland. But in 1921 a group of Sinn Fein, and
IRA
members signed an treaty with the British, accepting the division of
Ireland. This was when what's known as 'Northern Ireland' was created,
dominated by Protestants. However, Catholics had wanted a united and
Independent Ireland, so resentment grew. "After partition, it was
hardline
Unionists who held power in the North, they were determined to keep
Ulster
British and Protestant. They tended to see all Northern Catholics as
possible traitors. As a result Catholics were discriminated against"
(1)
In the 1930s there was a worldwide economic depression, due to the
'Wall
Street Crash' in America. Both Irish Catholics and Protestants were
affected
very seriously, the economic depression lasted 20 years.
Irish Catholics faced another problem, when it came round to election
time,
most Catholics would probably vote a Catholic representative to speak
on
behalf of the Catholic people, however, Protestants 'fixed' the
elections to
favour the Protestants, it was made sure that no Catholics could be
voted
into Parliament to speak up for their fellow people. This was known as
'Gerrymandering', the process by which constituency boundaries were
redrawn
to favour the Protestant population. The Unionists controlled the
Catholic
areas, this was a huge disadvantage to the Catholic people, they had
no
political power. Catholics were not given job opportunities, if a
Protestant
and a Catholic applied for the same job, no matter how qualified the
Catholic was, the Protestant would always get the job. This meant that
many
Catholics were unemployed and could often not afford to feed their
families.
Catholic children were put in the worst schools, whilst the Protestant
children were put in the very best schools. Catholic children were not
taught anything about Catholicism, they were only taught about
Protestant
history. Children grew up believing that Catholics were evil and the
Protestant religion was the way forward. "We knew nothing of the
Catholic
world. That Catholics were allowed to live in London with our
Protestant
king seemed impossible" (2)
Another significant social problem at the time for Catholic people was
that
they were placed in the worst housing. If a Catholic family were in
need of
a home, they would become second class citizens to a single Protestant
girl,
the girl would have a better chance of acquiring the house than the
needy
Catholic family.Many children had inadequate diets which resulted in
many
children dying of malnutrition. Many of the children's parents could
not
afford to pay doctor's bills. There was an outbreak of Tuberculosis
(TB),
which killed thousands of men, mainly aged between 15-25.
In 1969 The British Government sent the army into Northern Ireland to
"Prevent a Civil War". Despite all the unfairness the Catholics had to
deal
with, this had not been necessary earlier. Many things changed between
1960-1969.
Firstly before 1960 Catholics pursued peaceful methods, inspired by
The
American Civil Rights Movement, the Northern Ireland civil rights
association began. From 1920 through to 1960 Catholics had campaigned
for
fairer conditions and had expected change to come through the ballot
box
(they did not know that their votes had been ignored).
The Police in Northern Ireland were 99.9% Protestant and extremely
biased
and violent towards Catholics, they would attack innocent Catholics
for no
reason whatsoever. The Police even led the Catholic marchers into a
trap,
here they were met by violent Protestant Unionists, the outcome was
inevitable, violence. The 'B-Specials' were created - this was a unit
within
the police, that were 99.9% Protestant. They were called in by the
Unionists, to act like a police force/army. These too were violent to
the
Catholics, Catholic marches were banned. Student demonstrations ended
up in
violence. This angered the Catholics, they felt that if the
Protestants
should get to march they why shouldn't they. Housing conditions were
appalling for Catholics, they marched and campaigned about their
unfair
housing, yet again nothing was done. As the civil rights movement grew
in
the U.S.A., Irish Catholics saw black protests in America erupting
into
violence. The violent protest spread to Ireland. Student
demonstrations all
over Europe were becoming violent, this too acted as inspiration for
the
desperate Catholics. Education was now slightly fairer, Catholics were
allowed to go to university, but were not allowed jobs. As Eamonn
McCann, a
leading member of the civil rights movement, remarked, "By the early
1960s
we could we could easily get a place at a university but couldn't get
a job
as a lavatory cleaner at Derry guildhall. That made us angry" (3).
This alone proves that the Catholics were becoming increasingly
angered by
the lack of equal opportunity in Northern Ireland. The Catholic Irish
were
beginning to lose faith and trust in their politicians, they felt that
O'Neill was not keeping his promise of a 'fairer deal for Catholics',
they
were beginning to feel they needed to take the law into their own
hands. As
tensions grew, segregation became more likely. In cities like
Londonderry
and Belfast, "many people who lived in the 'wrong' area - that is
Catholics
in Protestant areas and vice versa - were forced to leave their
homes." (4)
In these circumstances it was much easier for battle lines to be
drawn.
Many people feel that the IRA were the reason for British soldiers
being
sent into Northern Ireland. However, from studying the facts I realise
that
this cannot be the reason as to why troops were sent to Northern
Ireland. In
1962 the IRA abandoned it's campaign of violence because of lack of
Catholic
support. In August 1969, there is more fighting between Protestants
and
Catholics in Belfast, and the British Army moves in. It is only then
that
the IRA splits into two groups: Official and Provisional. The Bombing
campaign by the IRA started in 1970.
A more telling fact as to why British troops were sent in to Northern
Ireland in 1969 may be due to the fact that the Irish Prime Minister,
Jack
Lynch was threatening to intervene with the troubles in Northern
Ireland,
and went as far as moving Irish army units towards the border. The
British
government may have felt that matters were gradually being taken out
of
their hands.
According to the Belfast Independent Research Group, 3,285 people lost
their lives as a direct result of this latest phase of the Anglo/Irish
conflict. The vast majority of deaths occurred in the Six Northeastern
Counties of British Occupied Ireland. The political violence in these
six, small counties of Ireland with a million and one-half people has
meant that 1 out of every 500 citizens has been killed. In American
terms, it would be the equivalent of 500,000 deaths, 10 Viet Nams.
This slaughter is a direct result of the politically motivated
gerrymander of Ireland to solve the very short term needs of British
political interests.
Summary
The raw data clearly indicates that the IRA is engaged in a military
conflict against the British army and its operatives. It is in
consideration of the nature of the conflict for insurgent forces
against a modern, highly mechanized, sophisticated and armed
occupation force that holds all of the ground, that IRA civilian
causalities needs to be accessed.
Killings by British and Loyalist forces, individually and in collusion
with each other, must be similarly judged, as both absolute numbers
and as percentages of the total deaths they are responsible for.
The vast majority of killings by Loyalist paramilitaries have been
innocent civilians in an effort to terrorize the nationalist
community. 670 people were deliberately targeted and murdered by
Loyalists because they were Catholics, including Protestant civilians
killed because they were mistaken for Catholics or married to or
associated with Catholic civilians. 73.5% of Loyalist targeted
killings were innocent Catholic/Protestant civilians.
The vast majority of Irish people killed by British crown forces were
unarmed, Catholic non-combatants.
http://www.inac.org/irishhistory/deaths
Political separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland did
not come until the early 20th century, when Protestants and Catholics
divided into two warring camps over the issue of Irish home rule. Most
Irish Catholics desired complete independence from Britain, but Irish
Protestants feared living in a country ruled by a Catholic majority.