Before arriving in Ireland, I knew next to nothing about the territory of Northern Ireland or the complex and horrific period in history generally know as ‘The Troubles’ or ‘The Conflict’. Three of the classes I am taking here in Dublin deal specifically with this situation, so my knowledge on the subject has grown exponentially over the past two and a half months. A brief, and inevitably lacking, summary:
For those who do not know, Northern Ireland is part of the UK, not part of the Republic of Ireland. Citizens of Northern Ireland who wish to remain part of the UK are known as ‘Unionists’ or ‘loyalists’; those who wish to join the Republic of Ireland are known as ‘Nationalists’ or ‘Republicans’. In the late 1960s, a community of working-class citizens of Northern Ireland began a Civil Rights Movement, inspired by the Civil Rights Movements in the United States, to request basic human rights from the British government that were not being given to them. When the British army and Northern Irish police forces used violence against these peaceful protesters, a radical part of the Nationalist community, known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA), responded by beginning an armed struggle against Britsih rule that would last until the mid 1990s. Almost 3500 people were killed over the course of the Troubles, by means of bombs, assassinations, murders, random shootings, etc. The IRA did not stop its violence until the Peace Process, during which leaders from all camps–Nationalist/Republican, Unionist/loyalist, British, and Irish–came to the negotiating table and created the Good Friday Agreement. This Agreement gave the citizens of Northern Ireland the right of self-determination, meaning that if a majority of the people in Northern Ireland at any point want the North to become part of the Republic of Ireland, Britain will support and facilitate this decision.
In mid-October, after spending over a month learning the ins and outs of the Northern Irish conflict, we had the opportunity to take a field trip to Belfast, a city that suffered dramatically from the violence of the Troubles. In Belfast, we visited Stormont, the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Here we met representatives from the five political parties of NI, Unionist and Nationalist, and had Q+A sessions with each of them. This was an incredibly interesting opportunity, as we heard differing perspectives on where the situation stands now, a little over a decade after the Peace Process.
The most interesting part of the trip for me was simply walking around the city of Belfast, trying to picture it in the middle of the mayhem and chaos of the Troubles, buildings bombed on every corner, British soldiers patrolling the streets. It was incredibly surreal to be there.
This post only barely skims the top of the Troubles, but once I started learning about the Troubles, I was appalled that my education on the subject was so minimal. The conflict is too complex a situation to reduce into a blog-post, but I wanted to at least acknowledge the importance that people know what happened there. If you are inspired, do some more research/reading on the subject–it is fascinating and tragic and a part of history that should never be repeated.