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When thinking about sectarian strife, the mind immediately turns to modern-era conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Myanmar, the Central African Republic and many other Asian and African nations. The perception of many is that Europe has long risen above the conflict based on confessional differences, after bloody religious wars and massacres of the early modern age. But just a few decades ago, Ireland and Britain were rocked by a deadly low-intensity conflict, which went on for more than 30 years. Today, we are talking about The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND To understand the origins of the sectarian conflict in Ireland, we have to go back to the 12th century, when the Anglo-Norman invasion began a long period of British domination of Ireland. Initially, England controlled swathes of the Irish territory and suppressed the native Gaelic culture and language. In the 16th century, England separated from Catholicism and started to persecute Catholics in Ireland, too. One of the ways was settling English and Scottish protestants in Ulster, Northern Ireland, stripping the native Irish people of their lands. This created a permanent protestant foothold in
Ireland and a population loyal to the British Crown. And a source of conflict with the Catholic Irish population, which fought for independence from Britain. They finally got their independence in 1921. But there was a catch. Britain maintained control over 4 Protestant-majority and 2 mixed, but Catholic-majority counties in the North, which formed Northern Ireland. It was a self-governing region of the United Kingdom. The Protestant majority, which dominated Northern Ireland's politics and economy, were in favor of the continued union with Britain. At the same time,
the Catholic minority of 35-40% complained of gerrymandering to decrease their representation, discrimination in housing and employment, along with an overwhelmingly Protestant police force. Also, many in the Republic of Ireland saw the partition of their country into two as a gross injustice and an ugly remnant of the British subjugation. They fought to unite Ireland, with the IRA leading the way, often employing terrorist tactics. Still, until the 1960s, there was a great deal of tension in Northern Ireland, but things were nowhere near the point of an almost full-blown war.
HOW DID THE TROUBLES START? In 1966, various groups of Catholics in the North created the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), which proclaimed the end of discrimination against Catholics as its goal. At the time, various popular movements were attempting to upend the status quo in different parts of the West. Simultaneously, Britain was expanding its welfare programs. NICRA saw this as an opportune time to start non-violent action, aiming to tackle housing and electoral inequality in the North. Inspired by the successes of the civil rights movement in America, they called for a peaceful march in
Derry on October 6, 1968. But the police banned the march, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the local police force consisting primarily of Protestants, dispersed the demonstration with excessive brutality. This was a trigger event that let loose the decades' worth of pressure building up in Northern Ireland. Tensions started rising. On January 5, 1969, a nationalist group called People's Democracy attempted a march from Belfast to Derry, part of which was going to be through loyalist neighborhoods. Although initially peaceful, the march was eventually
attacked near Derry at Burntollet Bridge by the loyalists and then the police. Later that night, several policemen broke into the homes of Catholics in the neighbourhood called Bogside. The Catholics responded by setting up barricades and organizing patrols. But the culmination of the first phase of the Troubles came in August 1969, when the loyalist group called the Apprentice Boys organized a march to commemorate a symbolic day of the Protestant Victory in the Siege of Derry. The march was going to pass through Bogside, and the Catholic nationalists saw this as a provocation
and an insult. This was where the nationalists were waiting for the loyalists and attacked them. For three days, the sides clashed, hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at each other. The police tried to stop the riot by removing the barricades and entering the Catholic part of the town. The Catholics also forced them back, but the removal of barricades allowed the Protestants to enter the Bogside. Many homes and businesses were destroyed. More than 1000 people were injured in what would be known as the Battle of the Bogside. The scale of unrest forced the prime minister
of Northern Ireland, James Chichester-Clark, to request the deployment of British troops to Derry. DEPLOYMENT OF BRITISH TROOPS. ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE. BLOODY SUNDAY Initially, even the Catholic population of Northern Ireland welcomed the British army with cautious optimism. They hoped that the British army would restore order and, unlike the Royal Ulster Constabulary, actually protect them from the militant loyalist groups. But because the underlying causes of the conflict remained, the confrontation continued. There was more rioting and gunfights between the sides in 1970. In response, in July, the British army entered a Catholic neighbourhood of Belfast, called the Lower Falls,
to capture the weapon caches belonging to the IRA. In response, young residents of the Lower Falls started throwing rocks at the troops, who responded with tear gas. This ultimately escalated into an all-out battle between the British Army and the IRA in this neighborhood. The army declared a curfew in the neighborhood and conducted door-to-door searches in homes and businesses. There were instances of harassment of the residents, looting and destruction of property by the soldiers. This was a turning point in the relationship between the ordinary Catholics
of Northern Ireland and the British Army, which they initially hoped would be a neutral force. In the next couple of years, the conflict escalated. Both between the British Army and the IRA, which engaged in regular firefights, on one side and between the unionists and the Irish nationalists on the other. In 1971, the Ulster Volunteer Force carried out the McGurk Bar bombing, killing 15 people. The Catholic neighborhoods of Derry were erecting barricades to create no-go areas for the British army and the unionist militants. The IRA controlled these
areas. To curb the rising violence, the British government adopted the policy of interment - imprisonment without trial, but once again it backfired. The problem was that this policy was enforced almost exclusively against people suspected of being involved with the IRA. The Catholic community perceived this as Britain taking the unionists' side in this conflict once again. At this point, many Irish nationalists began to see the armed struggle as a justified course of action. What happened next was arguably the single most recognizable event of the Troubles. In response to the ban on all demonstrations by
the Northern Irish government and in protest to the internment, the Irish nationalists called for a demonstration in Derry on January 30, 1972. On this day, British soldiers used excessive and inadequate force against the protesters, firing at them, some of whom were throwing stones at them. 14 protesters were killed. As a result, things started spiralling out of control. The ranks of the Provisional IRA swelled. 1972 was by far the deadliest year of the Troubles. 480 people from all sides, including more than 100 British soldiers, were killed that year. The
IRA conducted several fatal attacks on the British military bases. Many were killed in bombing attacks in Belfast and Derry. The Provisional IRA carried out the deadliest attack in Belfast on July 21, 1972, when 22 car bombs exploded to kill 9 people. In response, the British army launched Operation Motorman in late July, restoring control over the No-Go zones in Derry and Belfast. The IRA responded with another deadly car bombing in Claude village. SUNNINGDALE AGREEMENT. MORE ESCALATION It became clear that the British strategy was not working, so they decided to change things up. In March 1972,
the British government suspended the Northern Ireland parliament and introduced direct rule from London. In June 1973, elections to the new parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, were held with the participation of mainstream nationalist and unionist parties. Together with the British and Irish governments, they struck the Sunningdale Agreement, which envisaged power-sharing between the two communities and the creation of the Council of Ireland, intended to enhance cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The agreement was contrary to the maximalist demands of both the IRA, which wanted a united independent Ireland, and of the radical unionists, who opposed any power-sharing with the Catholics. The Sunningdale Agreement fell through very rapidly. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party organized protests, and the Protestant trade unionist organization called the Ulster Workers' Council organized a general strike throughout Northern Ireland. After two weeks, the Unionist Party left the Agreement. The first attempt at a non-violent resolution of the Troubles failed. Violence restarted. In 1974-76, several horrific attacks
were carried out by both sides. In February 1974, the IRA bombed a coach, and in April, they bombed a pub in Birmingham, killing 33 people in total. The unionist militants, particularly the Ulster Volunteer Force, conducted their own deadly attacks against the Catholics, killing more than 370 civilians in this period. The deadliest was the bombing of Dublin and Monaghan in May 1974, which killed 34 people. The failure of the peace process and the renewed violence led to significant rethinking among all parties to this conflict.
The British government recognized that keeping thousands of its troops in place without resolving the dispute cannot be a long-term plan. Britain ended the much-maligned policy of internment. Now the arrested paramilitaries would be tried in court, but without juries, whom they feared could be intimidated by militants from both sides. Arrested paramilitaries also lost their political prisoner status. At the same time, the British government sought to gradually reduce its presence in Northern Ireland and restore the local police force as the primary guarantor of security.
The Official IRA, which proclaimed a ceasefire in 1972, made the ceasefire permanent, while transitioning to mainstream politics, essentially giving up armed struggle. This finalized the process of the Provisional IRA becoming the primary force for those who believed that violence was the only way of ensuring the goals of the Catholic community. Having said that, there was also a great degree of disillusionment on the part of the Provisionals. On the eve of the Sunningdale process, they believed Britain was about to leave Northern Ireland, but by the mid-1970s,
the Provisionals realized this was not going to be a short conflict. They started preparing for the Long War, a war of attrition, the goal of which was to make Northern Ireland ungovernable while bleeding out the British army to the point of forcing the British government to withdraw its troops. The Provisionals' primary target from then on was the British Army. Their most significant attack in this period was conducted in August 1979, when they killed 18 British soldiers in an ambush at Warrenpoint, while also killing Lord Louis Mountbatten in a separate attack.
THE HUNGER STRIKE. BOBBY SANDS The escalation of violence led to more people being arrested from the IRA. And we already mentioned that by this point, the British government had taken away the political prisoner status of detained militants. They were now seen and treated as ordinary criminals. One of the consequences was that now they were not held in the Prisoner-of-War type camp at Long Kesh, but at a prison built for them - the Maze. And this prison became a site of one of the most infamous episodes of the Troubles. Initially, both the nationalist and some loyalist prisoners demanded the restoration of their political status
by refusing to clean up their cells or wear prison uniforms. This process culminated in 23 nationalist prisoners starting a hunger strike in March 1981. This action gained steam when one of the prisoners, Bobby Sands of the IRA, was elected to the British Parliament in absentia. There was significant global attention and pressure on the British government. But Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did not budge. "There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence… It is only criminal," - she said, signalling her uncompromising stance. The IRA
prisoners also had no intention to back down. In the end, no amount of pressure forced Thatcher to reconsider. Bobby Sands died in prison after 66 days. 9 other prisoners suffered from the same fate. They became recognizable martyr faces of the Irish republican cause. The Troubles continued. The IRA went on a bombing campaign in England in the 1980s. In July 1982, the IRA killed 11 soldiers in Hyde Park and Regent's Park. In 1984, they bombed the Grand Brighton Hotel in Brighton, which hosted the Conservative Party conference. 5 people, including MP Sir Anthony Berry,
were killed. Several attacks were conducted against the Northern Ireland police force. ANGLO-IRISH AGREEMENT AND FURTHER VIOLENCE Meanwhile, amid the worsening crisis, Britain and Ireland continued to look for ways to solve it. In 1985, the sides reached an agreement stipulating that the Irish government would assume an advisory role in Northern Ireland matters, and that the status of Northern Ireland could change only if the majority voted to join the Republic of Ireland. Many loyalist militant groups saw this as Britain selling them out. Supported by weapons from the apartheid regime of South Africa,
they carried out several attacks of their own against the IRA and Catholic neighborhoods. But the IRA at this time also started getting increased foreign military assistance from none other than the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who sent large amounts of weapons and explosives. Another shocking episode of the IRA bombing campaign took place on November 8, 1987, when their bombing killed 10 civilians attending a war memorial at a Remembrance Sunday service in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.
By the 1990s, the intensity of the Troubles had decreased somewhat. The IRA was not as active in Derry and Belfast anymore due to a higher British presence, but they found ways to inflict damage on the British army elsewhere. In the 1990s, they conducted several sniper attacks against British soldiers in Crossmaglen. They also shot down 3 British helicopters in the border areas between Ireland and Northern Ireland during this period. The IRA also continued to target the heart of the British political and financial systems. On February 7, 1991,
they fired a mortar at 10 Downing Street in an attempt to kill Prime Minister John Major. In 1992 and 1993, they carried out destructive bombing attacks in the City of London. GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT AND CONCLUSION After several more deadly attacks by the IRA and the Unionists in Ireland, the sides reached the point where they concluded that the only result of further violence would be just more death. It would not bring the solution any closer. In August 1994, the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire. Two months later, the Unionist militant groups did the same. At one point in 1996,
the IRA broke the truce by bombing London and Manchester once again. But this did not stop the peace process, which was now mediated by George Mitchell, US president Clinton's special envoy, and included a broad group of organizations, including Sinn Féin and Ulster Democratic Party. The peace talks culminated in the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, a comprehensive agreement that addressed the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, unification of Ireland, power-sharing and devolution, normalization, reforms, disarmament, and cooperation with the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. According
to the agreement, Northern Ireland was to remain a part of the United Kingdom, unless a majority of its population voted otherwise. The Republic of Ireland would remove territorial claims to Northern Ireland from its Constitution. A new parliament - the Northern Ireland Assembly was to be created with the executive authority being shared between two communities. Key ministerial positions were also to be shared on a proportional basis, while major decisions required the consent of both communities. The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were to strive to enhance economic cooperation. The paramilitary groups on
both sides were to disarm, and prisoners were to be released. The Royal Ulster Constabulary was to be reformed into the Police Service of Northern Ireland with a balanced Catholic and Protestant representation. At the same time, the British army would gradually reduce its presence in Northern Ireland. Northern Irish people were allowed to choose British, Irish or dual citizenship. The Good Friday Agreement ended the Troubles and a 3-decade-long low-intensity conflict. More than 3500 people were killed during the Troubles, with the IRA and other nationalist
groups responsible for some 2000 deaths. While some fringe groups continued insisting on maximalist demands and tension exists to this day, the scale of conflict and death has decreased dramatically. Riots still occasionally occur. Political crises, too. Trade and customs-related issues between Northern Ireland and Britain following Brexit were a significant issue, for instance. But the Good Friday Agreement put an end to another bloody page of the history of relations between Ireland and Britain. We would be lying if we said that all the underlying issues that caused
the Troubles have been solved, but let's hope that any future disagreements, if they arise, are resolved peacefully and without any bloodshed. More videos on the modern conflicts are on the way, so make sure you are subscribed and have pressed the bell button to see it. Please consider liking, subscribing, commenting, and sharing - it helps immensely. Our patrons and YouTube members can watch more than 200+ exclusive videos - join their ranks via the link in the description or by pressing the join button under the video to watch these weekly videos,
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