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Welcome! Today, I will tell you about the conflict in Ireland. It's a huge topic, so I'm not going to stand here till tomorrow – don't you worry. But I'm going to talk you roughly through the history of the conflict, from the start to present. Then I will talk a bit more about the situation today.
So – to this very day Northern Ireland has been a complete battlefield with dozens of unnecessary casualties. Why? Because Ireland has been in a rough conflict for a long time, and the roots of the clash go all the way back to the 11th century. England decided to invade Ireland – but Ireland didn't want to give away its land and freedom. Therefore, Ireland fought back. The fighting, killing and revolts then began and would continue for ages. It didn't become any better when the Reformation saw daylight some time later. The British people became Protestants after the Reformation, but the Irish people wanted to stick with the Roman Catholic Church. Then Protestants from England and Scotland settled in the best parts of Ireland. After that, the fightings became even worse. It was between the Catholics and the Protestants. They didn't fight only because the Protestants were the ones who gave up the Roman Catholic Church – they also fought because the Protestants “represented” England and Scotland and the Catholics “represented” Ireland.
The situation was frightening. Catholic children could not play outside in fear of Protestants throwing bottles and bricks at them, and Protestants could risk to be killed if they went across the “border” to the Catholic side. Big battles were fought between them. The most famous one has to be the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The Catholics, lead by King James II of Scotland, had to surrender to the Protestants, lead by William III of Orange. After that, the Catholics civil rights were taken away. They could not vote, could not be elected to Parliament, could not join the army or the navy and they could not own any weapons. Poor Catholics could not even study at the university! And the Catholic priests were not allowed in Irish churches, nor were Catholic teachers allowed in Irish schools. What would you do if somebody suddenly took away all your rights as a civil person? You would be mad, right? And I'm pretty certain you would not give them up so easily – and the Catholics did not either.
At that point, the fight was about politics, religion and civil rights! Imagine living in a society were people fight over everything and hate each other because of a decision made almost 1000 years ago. Early in the 1920s the island was divided into two parts: Northern Ireland, or Ulster, where most Protestants lived and the Irish Free State where there was most Roman Catholics. The Free State was still a part of Great Britain for about about two decades. Then it became an independent country, named the Republic of Ireland, commonly known as Eire.
Believe it or not, even if the two groups now were segregated with a border – the fights still continued. Because now the Republic of Ireland wanted their land back, and Northern Ireland wanted to stay British. Therefore, many terror organisations has been established as time has went by. The IRA (Irish Republican Army) is the most known group by its use of terror. They have committed terrible crimes like planting bombs in British supermarkets! One can understand that Eire wants Northern Ireland back, but I'm certain that using terror is not the right path to choose at all. You would not use violence if you wanted to prove a point, right? It just makes everything worse – and that's what happened in Ireland as well. Things became worse. Because of all the Catholic terror organisations fighting to get Northern Ireland back, British soldiers were sent to make peace. If you were sent to make peace as a soldier, what would you do? You would most likely try to talk to the other part, and have a conversation and try to make peace in a proper way. The British soldiers did not! There was a Catholic civil rights march in the streets when the protesters met the soldiers. The “peacemakers” fired shots at the Catholics, and thirteen of them died. Is that how you make peace between to countries? No, absolutely not! That day, known as Bloody Sunday, has been remembered as one of the most tragic incidents in Ireland.
Why can't the two parties get along? Is it such a bad thing that they have their own type of religion? Is terror and war going to stop it? Why can't they just stop fighting? That's some of the questions innocent, non-violent Irishmen and Irishwomen ask themselves. Even if there is a lot of fighting and arguing in Ireland doesn't mean that everybody is involved nor want such things to happen. Imagine if you lived close to the border as a Protestant, and became best friends with a Catholic. How do you think it would be like? Having a best friend that you could not tell you parents about, because they would hate him only for his choice of religion. What if you were a Catholic and got a Protestant girlfriend? You could get beaten up if somebody found out, just because they accuse Protestants of stealing their land. Not everybody wanted these wrangles. The Catholic John Hume and the Protestant David Trimble were two of them. They were fed up with all the misery and trouble and wanted to make peace. They were responsible for the agreement in April 1998 known as the Good Friday Agreement, where major politicians from both sides wanted to find a solution to the problem. The agreement consisted of deals such as that both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland would put their weapons away and have complete armistice.
Now – many of you may wonder: How is the situation today? Well, let's just say that it is more acceptable for a Protestant to have a Catholic friend, and for a Catholic to have a Protestant girlfriend. It is much more peaceful today. Though there still are some terror groups that does not want to give away their weapons, the majority of the Irish people want peace. Even the IRA gave away their weapons a little while after the Good Friday Agreement. When the biggest terror organisation doesn't want war anymore, it should say something about how horrible it was. Despite the ceasefire from both sides, Catholics and Protestants are still divided with walls and such. They're not very happy to talk to each other. Even though, if you compare today with the worst times in Ireland, there really is a huge difference. Protestants and Catholics aren't as segregated as they were before, and the hate is not as strong as it was before. In these days both countries are focusing on things such as economics and education. The politicians in both Eire and Ulster are working to make schools for the two opposing religions. The most important thing is to maintain the peace of course. One can't just get an agreement to have armistice and think that there is complete peace, right? It needs to be carefully teated and they must negociate without breaking the progress they have made so far.
The present problem with the conflict in Ireland is that politicians are facing challenges. While the amount of terror organised groups are falling, more extreme parties are rising. When the IRA laid their weapons down, a few of the terrorists in the group denied. They left the group and formed Real IRA (RIRA) with other people negative to having peace.
The conflict is getting lighter, both Catholics and Protestants are more tolerant and open to each other, and the Irish society is gradually becoming a better place. The most important thing for the Irish people is to keep the peace and remember what Gandhi said: that an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
So I hope you've learned something about the Irish conflict in this class. If you got any questions, feel free to ask, otherwise you can dismiss.
Sources:
New Flight Textbook
http: //www. aftenposten. no/fakta/nordirland/article707427. ece
http: //www. vg. no/nyheter/utenriks/historien-bak-konflikten-i-nord-irland/a/10451/
http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement
http: //ndla. no/en/node/66378
Language: English
Language Skills: Native speaker, Proficiency, Advanced, Upper-Intermediate
So – to this very day Northern Ireland has been a complete battlefield with dozens of unnecessary casualties. Why? Because Ireland has been in a rough conflict for a long time, and the roots of the clash go all the way back to the 11th century. England decided to invade Ireland – but Ireland didn't want to give away its land and freedom. Therefore, Ireland fought back. The fighting, killing and revolts then began and would continue for ages. It didn't become any better when the Reformation saw daylight some time later. The British people became Protestants after the Reformation, but the Irish people wanted to stick with the Roman Catholic Church. Then Protestants from England and Scotland settled in the best parts of Ireland. After that, the fightings became even worse. It was between the Catholics and the Protestants. They didn't fight only because the Protestants were the ones who gave up the Roman Catholic Church – they also fought because the Protestants “represented” England and Scotland and the Catholics “represented” Ireland.
The situation was frightening. Catholic children could not play outside in fear of Protestants throwing bottles and bricks at them, and Protestants could risk to be killed if they went across the “border” to the Catholic side. Big battles were fought between them. The most famous one has to be the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The Catholics, lead by King James II of Scotland, had to surrender to the Protestants, lead by William III of Orange. After that, the Catholics civil rights were taken away. They could not vote, could not be elected to Parliament, could not join the army or the navy and they could not own any weapons. Poor Catholics could not even study at the university! And the Catholic priests were not allowed in Irish churches, nor were Catholic teachers allowed in Irish schools. What would you do if somebody suddenly took away all your rights as a civil person? You would be mad, right? And I'm pretty certain you would not give them up so easily – and the Catholics did not either.
At that point, the fight was about politics, religion and civil rights! Imagine living in a society were people fight over everything and hate each other because of a decision made almost 1000 years ago. Early in the 1920s the island was divided into two parts: Northern Ireland, or Ulster, where most Protestants lived and the Irish Free State where there was most Roman Catholics. The Free State was still a part of Great Britain for about about two decades. Then it became an independent country, named the Republic of Ireland, commonly known as Eire.
Believe it or not, even if the two groups now were segregated with a border – the fights still continued. Because now the Republic of Ireland wanted their land back, and Northern Ireland wanted to stay British. Therefore, many terror organisations has been established as time has went by. The IRA (Irish Republican Army) is the most known group by its use of terror. They have committed terrible crimes like planting bombs in British supermarkets! One can understand that Eire wants Northern Ireland back, but I'm certain that using terror is not the right path to choose at all. You would not use violence if you wanted to prove a point, right? It just makes everything worse – and that's what happened in Ireland as well. Things became worse. Because of all the Catholic terror organisations fighting to get Northern Ireland back, British soldiers were sent to make peace. If you were sent to make peace as a soldier, what would you do? You would most likely try to talk to the other part, and have a conversation and try to make peace in a proper way. The British soldiers did not! There was a Catholic civil rights march in the streets when the protesters met the soldiers. The “peacemakers” fired shots at the Catholics, and thirteen of them died. Is that how you make peace between to countries? No, absolutely not! That day, known as Bloody Sunday, has been remembered as one of the most tragic incidents in Ireland.
Why can't the two parties get along? Is it such a bad thing that they have their own type of religion? Is terror and war going to stop it? Why can't they just stop fighting? That's some of the questions innocent, non-violent Irishmen and Irishwomen ask themselves. Even if there is a lot of fighting and arguing in Ireland doesn't mean that everybody is involved nor want such things to happen. Imagine if you lived close to the border as a Protestant, and became best friends with a Catholic. How do you think it would be like? Having a best friend that you could not tell you parents about, because they would hate him only for his choice of religion. What if you were a Catholic and got a Protestant girlfriend? You could get beaten up if somebody found out, just because they accuse Protestants of stealing their land. Not everybody wanted these wrangles. The Catholic John Hume and the Protestant David Trimble were two of them. They were fed up with all the misery and trouble and wanted to make peace. They were responsible for the agreement in April 1998 known as the Good Friday Agreement, where major politicians from both sides wanted to find a solution to the problem. The agreement consisted of deals such as that both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland would put their weapons away and have complete armistice.
Now – many of you may wonder: How is the situation today? Well, let's just say that it is more acceptable for a Protestant to have a Catholic friend, and for a Catholic to have a Protestant girlfriend. It is much more peaceful today. Though there still are some terror groups that does not want to give away their weapons, the majority of the Irish people want peace. Even the IRA gave away their weapons a little while after the Good Friday Agreement. When the biggest terror organisation doesn't want war anymore, it should say something about how horrible it was. Despite the ceasefire from both sides, Catholics and Protestants are still divided with walls and such. They're not very happy to talk to each other. Even though, if you compare today with the worst times in Ireland, there really is a huge difference. Protestants and Catholics aren't as segregated as they were before, and the hate is not as strong as it was before. In these days both countries are focusing on things such as economics and education. The politicians in both Eire and Ulster are working to make schools for the two opposing religions. The most important thing is to maintain the peace of course. One can't just get an agreement to have armistice and think that there is complete peace, right? It needs to be carefully teated and they must negociate without breaking the progress they have made so far.
The present problem with the conflict in Ireland is that politicians are facing challenges. While the amount of terror organised groups are falling, more extreme parties are rising. When the IRA laid their weapons down, a few of the terrorists in the group denied. They left the group and formed Real IRA (RIRA) with other people negative to having peace.
The conflict is getting lighter, both Catholics and Protestants are more tolerant and open to each other, and the Irish society is gradually becoming a better place. The most important thing for the Irish people is to keep the peace and remember what Gandhi said: that an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
So I hope you've learned something about the Irish conflict in this class. If you got any questions, feel free to ask, otherwise you can dismiss.
Sources:
New Flight Textbook
http: //www. aftenposten. no/fakta/nordirland/article707427. ece
http: //www. vg. no/nyheter/utenriks/historien-bak-konflikten-i-nord-irland/a/10451/
http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement
http: //ndla. no/en/node/66378
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