Troubles

Independence and the separation of Ireland...	In 1920, when Ireland was granted home rule, six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster, northernmost of the four Irish provinces, were given the opportunity to separate politically from the rest of Ireland and remain part of the United Kingdom. Under the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, which effected the partition of Ireland, the six counties became a separate political division of the United Kingdom, known as the province of Northern Ireland, with its own constitution, parliament, and administration for local affairs. The Irish Free State (later Éire, and now the Republic of Ireland) did not accept the separation as permanent, and the reunification of the island remained an element of the constitution until the referendum of May 1998. The Protestant majority in Northern Ireland has consistently refused to consider a reunion. The boundary between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland was fixed in 1925. Most people in Northern Ireland saw partition from the Roman Catholic south and union with the United Kingdom as the safeguard of their Protestant religion and dominant political, economic, and social position. For many Irish Catholics, the creation of Northern Ireland was simply the latest of a very long line of British injustices inflicted upon the people of Ireland.
The beginning of terror...	In 1949, when Éire became the Republic of Ireland, the British parliament affirmed the status of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom unless its own parliament were to decide otherwise. Although the Republic still claimed the six northern counties, its withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Nations was deemed a tacit acceptance of the partition. In 1955, however, the IRA began a campaign of terrorism aimed at securing the union of Northern Ireland with the Republic. Terrorist acts, mainly in border areas, continued through 1957 and 1958, gradually becoming less frequent in the early 1960s. In 1962 the government of the Republic of Ireland condemned terrorism as a means of achieving unification. [Back to top of page]
Civil rights movement and the disadvantaged Catholic minority...	After partition, Catholics in Northern Ireland were a disadvantaged minority in matters of employment, housing, education, and effective cultural and political participation—a situation which the British government failed significantly to address. In 1968 an active and articulate civil rights movement emerged to protest against this discrimination, often provoking violent reactions within the Protestant community. Moderate Protestants recognized a need for governmental reform, but were strongly opposed by a right-wing faction of the ruling Ulster Unionist Party. British troops, sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 partly to help the beleaguered local police, and partly to offer protection to the Catholic communities, became a permanent presence. They maintained British authority but also became the focus of terrorist attacks and growing resentment. In 1971 internment (imprisonment without trial) was introduced in Northern Ireland as a measure to counter terrorism. The following year the British government suspended the Northern Ireland parliament and imposed direct rule. The move followed the incident that became known as "Bloody Sunday", when on January 30, 1972, British troops fired on civil rights protestors in Londonderry/Derry, killing 13.In a 1973 referendum, largely boycotted by Roman Catholics, the voters of Northern Ireland again chose to remain part of the United Kingdom rather than join the Irish Republic. In 1974 a 15-member Northern Ireland power-sharing executive, made up of both Protestants and Roman Catholics, was quickly abandoned when it provoked a general strike led by Protestant extremists. IRA bombs killed 21 and injured 120 in two Birmingham pubs in the same year. Two Belfast women, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for working to reconcile Northern Ireland’s religious communities. Their work, however, foundered in the face of the failure of attempts to bring the two factions together.
The chain of violance and an attempt at peace...	The Provisional IRA (the hard-line faction that broke away from the official IRA in 1969) maintained steady terrorist pressure. Protestant extremists matched them outrage for outrage. In August 1979 the Provisional IRA assassinated Earl Mountbatten of Burma and, on the same day, ambushed a party of British soldiers, killing 18 of them. In one day in July 1974 more than 20 IRA bombs, many of them car bombs, were detonated in Belfast. In 1981 a number of Provisional IRA prisoners in Long Kesh (the Maze) prison began a hunger strike; the first of 11 to die was Bobby Sands. The division between the Northern Irish communities remained as sharp as ever, with no solution in sight. The intergovernmental conference established in 1985 was welcomed by many as an important step towards cross-border cooperation on security, economic, and social issues, and eventual peace. Protestant Unionists and some Irish nationalists, however, denounced the accord. As the 1990s began, British troops were still patrolling the streets of Londonderry/Derry and Belfast, and the IRA continued to launch sporadic terrorist attacks on British civilians and military personnel in the British Isles and continental Europe. On August 31, 1994, the IRA announced a complete cessation of its military operations, ending 25 years of fighting. In October of that year, the Loyalist terrorist paramilitaries followed suit. In December 1994 the British government, despite strong opposition from the Democratic Unionists and other Protestant groups, held its first public talks with Sinn Fein; secret, often indirect, talks had gone on with the IRA for some time previously.