The King's Deception

The modern troubles began in 1966 and lasted until 2003, the violence claiming 3,703 lives. Nearly 40,000 people were injured. A shocking amount of mayhem considering only about 900,000 Protestants and 600,00 °Catholics lived in Northern Ireland during that time. For three long decades violence, distrust, fear, and hatred marred that country, eventually exported to England and Europe.

The seeds of that conflict, though, stretched way back.

Some experts point to the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland by Henry II in 1169 as the beginning. More realistically, it all began with the Tudors. Henry VIII was the first to take an interest in Ireland, invading and controlling the area in and around Dublin, slowly extending his hold outward, conciliation and innovation the weapons he used to subdue the local lords. Henry was so successful that an act of the Irish Parliament in 1541 proclaimed him king of Ireland. But rebellion was a constant threat. Troops were occasionally dispatched and skirmishes fought. Complicating matters was the fact that Ireland was overwhelmingly loyal to Rome and the pope, while Henry required allegiance to his new Protestant religion.

So a spiritual divide emerged. Local Irish Catholics versus the newly arrived English Protestants.

Ireland remained relatively unimportant during the short reigns of the next two Tudors, Edward VI and Mary.

Under Elizabeth I everything changed.

Personally, Elizabeth viewed the island as a wilderness and preferred to ignore it. But a series of rebellions, which called into question her entire foreign policy, forced her into action. A great army was sent, the rebellions crushed, and, as a consequence for defiance, Irish land was seized. The influence of Gaelic clans and Anglo-Norman dynasties, which had existed there for centuries, ended. Title to all land shifted to the Crown. Elizabeth then granted ownership, leases, and licenses to English colonists who formed plantations. This confiscation had first started during the time of Henry VIII, and continued in small doses through Edward and Mary, but it accelerated during Elizabeth’s reign, then reached its peak with her successor, James I. To work the newly acquired land, large numbers of Englishmen, Scots, and Welsh immigrated to Ireland. The idea of encouraging both colonists and plantations was to conquer Ireland from within, settling the country with loyal Englishmen beholden to the Crown. The English language would also be imported, as would English customs and beliefs. Irish culture would be eradicated.

This sowed the seeds of a bitter cultural and religious conflict, one that would endure for centuries. Catholic Irish Nationalists versus Protestant English Unionists.

Cromwell came in the 1640s and massacred thousands. The United Irish Rebellion, during the 1790s, was also brutally suppressed. The famine years of the 1840s nearly crushed everyone. Home rule was tried in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where the Dublin Parliament governed Ireland, but remaining answerable to London. A farce, which only widened the division. Irish society progressively grew more militant and radical. A war of independence, fought in 1919 between the Irish Republican Army and the British, ended with a solution neither side wanted. Ireland was partitioned, reduced from 32 to 26 counties, all in the south, where Catholic Nationalists dominated. The remaining six counties, all in the north, where Protestant Unionists were a majority, became the separate country of Northern Ireland.

Violence started immediately.

One factional group after another arose with its own radical agenda. Riots became commonplace. Minority Catholics in Northern Ireland began to feel threatened and lashed out, then Unionists retaliated, establishing a vicious cycle of strike and counterstrike. Coalition governments were tried. All failed. The Irish to the south and the Nationalists in the north wanted the English Protestants gone. The Protestant Unionists wanted their rights and lands protected by London, since it was the British Crown that had granted them in the first place. The six counties of Northern Ireland were initially chartered by Elizabeth I from seized Irish land, and every incoming owner there traced their title to a royal grant. At a minimum, the Unionists argued, London must protect their legal rights.

And London did.

Sending troops to suppress Nationalists.

Eventually, at the height of the Troubles, Nationalists brought the conflict to London and Europe and bombings became commonplace across the continent. An uneasy peace came in 1998, which has held ever since. But both sides remain deeply suspicious of the other, only tentatively willing to work together to avoid further bloodshed.

None of the root causes of the conflict has ever been resolved.

The same debate that started long ago continues.

Bitter feelings remain.

Nationalists want a united Ireland ruled by Irish.

Unionists want Northern Ireland to continue as part of Great Britain.