History
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3000 civilians were killed and 50000 people were severely wounded from the 1960s through the Belfast Agreement of 1998. The Troubles were an intense blend of rioting, warfare, terrorism, and attacks. Most people who died are paramilitary groups, including the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Ulster Defense Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force. When successive English conquests Ireland, they stripped the native Irish and English Catholics’ ownership of the land and replaced them with English and Scottish settlers. Therefore, Catholics in Ireland are descent from the native Gaelic Irish while Protestants are descent from the English and Scottish settlers. Catholics faced discrimination in housing and government employment; In 1950s, the Catholic middle class calls for equal rights and organized civil rights campaigns. The IRA fought against Protestant militias and resulted in 3000 deaths. Churches tried to prevent violence and maintain peace from each other but were not very successful initially. Later, the nonviolent Social Democratic and Labour Party negotiated with the rebels and lead to an IRA ceasefire in 1994. Churches signed Good Friday Agreement and the IRA destroyed its weapons; peacemaking is established in Northern Irish between Catholics and Protestants.
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Discussion Questions |
1. The historical origin of the conflict in Northern Ireland is the conquest of Ireland by English settlers. English and Scottish settlers, who are Protestants, took over lands of the native Irish and old English Catholic.
2. Religious leaders of Catholic and Protestant do not want to use violence to negotiate the problems. When IRA and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners went on hunger strikes, religious leaders disapproved the method. Catholic and Protestant refuse to speak with the paramilitary groups and IRA realized that it could not win by using armed forces. Religious leaders exerted pressures to push political parties on both sides come to peace. 3. The negotiation of political elites like British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, and US President Bill Clinton was crucial to the success of the peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement. The American Catholic Bishops partnered with the Presbyterian Church USA to raise money for business, brought Northern Ireland speakers to America, and exchanged students to promote peace in Northern Ireland. 4. The American Civil Rights Movement, which promoted civil disobedience without using violence, inspired the protests in Northern Ireland. This resulted in the Bloody Sunday incident, which fourteen citizens were killed by the British troops. This incident leads to the beginning of the Troubles and caused the death of many innocent civilians. 5. Church leaders interacted with the British and Irish governments to establish peace. Northern Ireland’s political parties decided to share religious power and national power between Protestants and Catholics. Although religion was the root of the conflict, it also played a crucial role on negotiating the issues and resolved the tensions between political parties. |