2009 • Northern Ireland
May 1, 2009 to May 4, 2009
Of the four countries in the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland has had the most troubled past and uncertain future. After visiting Scotland, I decided to take a ferry from Stranraer to Belfast to see this fascinating place for myself. The troubled past for Northern Ireland dates back centuries when England first started setting up forts and colonies across the Irish Sea on the Island of Ireland. Fast-forward to the early twentieth century and Ireland (all of it) has been made a full member of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but due to its distinct culture and the fact that most Irish people were Catholic (while most Britons are Protestant), many resented British rule. Up until the onset of the First World War, most people in Ireland just wanted “home rule” in which Ireland would wain its own Parliament within the United Kingdom. When it finally seemed like Ireland would get home rule, the First World War broke out and the bill that had passed through the UK Parliament to give Ireland its own parliament was put on indefinite hold. During the war, people resented the fact that the bill had been put on hold and that many Irishmen were being drafted to serve in the military. All of these issues bottled up and led to the Easter Rising rebellion against British rule in Ireland. The rebellion was not initially popular, but because the war was still going on, the British military dealt with the rebels in harshly, which made them gain sympathy among the public. This would eventually lead to most of Ireland’s independence in the 1920s. Well, what about Northern Ireland? Most people in that part of the country were Protestants that had moved to the Ulster province of Ireland back in the sixteenth century and had continued to move there ever since. As such, most people there identified as British and were loath to join with a Catholic-majority country. Mind you, there were some Catholic unionists and some Protestant nationalists, but a great deal of the conflict was centered around religion. With the rest of Ireland becoming its own country, Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom as it does to this day. Of course, many Irish nationalists hated the idea that Britain still held sovereignty over part of Ireland and many Northern Irish Catholics were furious with their treatment by British authorities. Tensions boiled over in the late 1960s and a full-blown sectarian conflict began between Irish nationalists and British unionists. Finally, in 1998, a peace process was put into effect that have the Northern Irish people the right to either British and/or Irish citizenship and the future right to determine whether to remain part or the UK or create a united Ireland. While in what is affectionately known “Norniron” (thanks to the distinct Northern Irish accent), I was able to go around Belfast and even take a tour up the coast of Antrim to the famous Giant’s Causeway.
