The Troubles, despite lasting only thirty years, were undeniably instrumental in provoking lasting change in Ireland; irrevocably altering the landscape of Irish politics and culture. A violent conflict, the Troubles lasted from 1968 to 1998 and divided Northern Ireland both physically and spiritually, between the Protestant unionists, who wished to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the Roman Catholic nationalists who wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland. Both sides regarded the conflict differently; the nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA) viewed the conflict as a guerrilla war fought for independence whereas the Unionist paramilitary forces denounced the IRA’s acts as a form of terrorism.
The conflict had arguably been in the making as early as the 12th century, during which the Anglo-Norman invasion left English settlers in Ireland, whose descendants became known as the ‘Old English’. From this point onwards until the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the spectre of English governance would cast a long shadow over Irish autonomy. When in 1922, Northern Ireland began to function as a self-governing region of the United Kingdom, the fractious nature of Northern Ireland became only more apparent. At this stage, two thirds of its population (roughly 1 million people) were Protestant, while one third (roughly 500,000 people) were Catholic. Such blatant numerical disparity quickly resulted in a social inequality, as evidenced by the Ulster Unionist Party’s (UUP) ascendancy in government due to the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland. This was only cemented by the gerrymandering of electoral districts, which served to diminish catholic representation. Furthermore, the decision to restrict voting rights to the taxpaying heads of households and their spouses resulted in an additional reduction of Catholic rights and purview in governance, which tended to be larger and more likely to include unemployed adult children than those of Protestant background. There is evidence that Catholics were additionally discriminated against in terms of the distribution of public housing, investment in neighbourhoods, and appointments to public service. Moreover, they were more likely to be subjected to police harassment by the Protestant dominated RUC and Ulster Special Constabulary.
But political and cultural differences penetrated deeper than religious divides. Not only was it illegal to fly the flag of the Irish republic, both Irish history and the Irish language were excluded from schools’ syllabuses in Northern Ireland. Additionally, from 1956 to 1974, Sinn Féin, the party that embodied Irish republicanism, was banned. Whilst Catholics on the whole identified as Irish and wished for Northern Ireland to be merged with Irish State, the majority of Protestants sought to retain their cultural heritage and ascendancy in Northern Ireland, hence opposing the unification of Ireland. Said Protestants, who identified as British, conveyed their ideals through the formation of Protestant unionist organisations such as the Orange Order, which was based on King William III’s victory over his Catholic predecessor, James II, at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
This inequality created fundamental underlying tensions in Northern Ireland that would eventually be the cause of the Troubles. The Education Act passed in 1947 increased educational opportunities for all Northern Irish citizens, and was highly significant in creating a generation of well-educated Irish Catholics in the 1960s who expected to be treated more fairly. The prevalence of political activism at this point throughout Europe (the Prague Spring, and events of May 1968 in France), undoubtedly buoyed this movement. Ultimately these factors resulted in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), an organisation that would become notorious in a matter of decades for its radical methods of achieving Northern Irish independence.
Although the exact date is contested among historians, it is generally acknowledged that the Troubles began on October 5th, 1968, in Derry, amid a march organised by the NICRA to protest gerrymandering and discrimination against Catholics. The NICRA’s decision to carry out the march in spite of it previously being forbidden from occurring (after unionists announced that they would be holding a counterdemonstration) resulted in a violent suppression of the protestors by the RUC with batons and a water cannon. A march held by Protestant loyalists in Londonderry on August 12th, 1969, contributed further to the rising tensions in Northern Ireland, when a clash between nationalists and the RUC resulted in two days of rioting.
There were, admittedly, steps taken by the government to address the ubiquitous unrest throughout Northern Ireland. More equitable electoral boundaries were drawn, discrimination in housing and employment in the public sector against Catholics was addressed, in addition to the B specials being decommissioned. Simultaneously, the government implemented measures designed to curb the chaos within Northern Ireland, including imprisonment without trial. Despite these efforts, discrimination did not cease, in that the overriding majority of those arrested were Catholic nationalists.
Throughout the 1970s, rioting spread uninhibited through Belfast and Derry, and the frequency of bombings by both sides increased. Emblematic of this era in Northern Ireland were “peace walls” composed of brick or steel, some rising up to 45 feet high, which were utilised to segregate loyalist and republican communities. When on January 30th, 1972, British paratroopers fired on Catholic civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry, it became evident that the crisis had reached a dire stage. 13 people were killed and 14 injured (one of whom later died), in what would become known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. The highly controversial incident as to which side was responsible for the massacre was not fully resolved until 2010, when the Saville Report concluded that the shooting of demonstrators by British forces had been unprovoked and thus could not be justified.
The escalating chaos in Northern Ireland resulted in the British government’s unilateral reinstatement of English rule and authority over Northern Ireland, and in March 1972, the suspension of the Northern Ireland Parliament. The deadliest single year of conflict, 1972, saw the deaths of more than 480 people. On the 21st of July, ‘Bloody Friday’, the detonation of 24 bombs by the Provos in Belfast killed 9 people and injured dozens more. From the mid 1970s onwards, the IRA shifted its emphasis from direct confrontation with British troops to secretive guerrilla operations, which involved the bombing of British cities. Loyalist groups simultaneously began bombing Ireland. Though there was potential for a resolution posed by the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. Its provision to create a new Northern Ireland Assembly with proportional representation for all parties, but the treaty was never implemented after loyalists staged a general strike in May 1974. The strike not only brought the country to a halt, but resulted in a return to direct English rule; a system of governance that would last 25 years. Throughout the 1970s, assassinations and bombings continued. From the killing of Lord Mountbatten, a member of the monarchy, in August 1979, to the opening of the Maze prison, which marked the change in perception of members of the IRA from prisoners of war to criminals, the conflict between the English and Irish governments grew increasingly more fraught and violent.
It was only after an IRA bomb attack staged in October 1984 on the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton that killed 5 people and threatened Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s life, that the first steps towards resolution of the conflict were made. In November 1985, Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, under which both countries established that a change in status of Northern Ireland could only come about if sanctioned by the majority of Northern Irish citizens. Despite the initial progress that was made, peace was not wholly reached until the Good Friday agreement, signed in Belfast on April 10th, 1998, which put an end to the bombings, assassinations and rioting between Protestants, Catholics, and British police and troops that had continued into the early 1990s. The treaty established the implementation of three primary ideas: the creation of the Northern Ireland Assembly, an arrangement for cooperation between the Irish and Northern Irish governments, and a sustained consultation between the British and Irish governments. The approval of the treaty by the Irish people in a referendum (94% of voters in Ireland and 71% in Northern Ireland) heralded the start of a new era, and an end to a conflict that had claimed an estimated 3600 lives, and had inflicted damage upon thousands more.
By Schuyler D
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