History - Pt II

GT12 spent Saturday 'in the studio' with Mr JK (and kept 'studio hours' too - we finished at 3 this AM) so the final half of our history lesson is a little late in getting to you than we had anticipated.

Today we look Ireland since the partician of the island into a Southern independent Republic and a northern dominion of England.

The north has been a thorn in England's side since at least the late 1800's. Unofficially, the crown had been inclined to let the whole Island go after famines and risings in the nineteenth century. The sticking point, as always, was money. for it was the north that was home to great British industrial wealth. And they weren't going to let go without a fight.

Industrial and financial leaders in the north enlisted their overwhelmingly protestant workerforce in their fight by throwing gasoline on longstanding religious rivalries, creating "Orange Orders" to unify protestants and inflame fears of a Papist overthrow of their econjomic hedgemony. These sectarian groups toook off like, well, like American Evangelicals expecting a Queer, Female and Black takeover of the Daughters of Confederacy.

More on all that as the month procedes but for now let's draw on Wikipedia:

History since partition

Irish Independence: The Irish Free State, Éire, Ireland

Main article: History of the Republic of Ireland

The Anglo-Irish Treaty was narrowly ratified by the Dáil in December 1921 but was rejected by a large minority, resulting in the Irish Civil War which lasted until 1923. In 1922, in the middle of this civil war, the Irish Free State came into being. For its first years the new state was governed by the victors of the Civil War. However, in the 1930s Fianna Fáil, the party of the opponents of the treaty, were elected into government. The party introduced a new constitution in 1937 which renamed the state "Éire or in the English language, Ireland" (preface to the Constitution).

The state was neutral during World War II which was known internally as The Emergency, but offered some assistance to the Allies, especially in Northern Ireland. However it is estimated that around 50,000 volunteers from the Republic fought in the British armed forces [3] during the second World War. In 1949, the Irish state declared itself to be a republic and that henceforth it should be described as the Republic of Ireland. The Republic was plagued by poverty and emigration until the mid-1970s. The 1990s saw the beginning of unprecedented economic success, in a phenomenon known as the "Celtic Tiger". By the early 2000s it had become one of the richest countries (in terms of GDP per capita) in the European Union, moving from being a net recipient of the budget to becoming a net contributor during the next Budget round (2007-13), and from a country of net emigration to one of net immigration. In October 2006, there were talks between Ireland and the U.S. to negotiate a new immigration policy between the two countries, in response to the growth of the Irish economy and desire of many U.S. citizens who sought to move to Ireland for work.[17]

Northern Ireland

Main article: History of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland was created as an administrative division of the United Kingdom by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. From 1921 until 1972, Northern Ireland was granted limited self-government within the United Kingdom, with its own parliament and prime minister.

In the first half of the 20th Century, Northern Ireland was largely spared the strife of the Civil War in the south, but there were sporadic episodes of inter-communal violence between Catholics and Protestants during the decades that followed partition. Although the Irish Free State was neutral during World War II, Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom was not, and became deeply involved in the British war effort (albeit without military conscription as it was introduced in Great Britain). Belfast suffered a bombing raid from the German Luftwaffe in 1941 causing one of the greatest losses of life in a single incident of the Battle of Britain.

In elections to the 1921-1972 regional government, the Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland each voted almost entirely along sectarian lines, meaning that the government of Northern Ireland (elected by "first past the post" from 1929) was always controlled by the Ulster Unionist Party. Over time, the minority Catholic community felt increasingly alienated by the regional government in Northern Ireland, with further disaffection fuelled by incidents such as gerrymandering of the local council in Londonderry in 1967, and the discrimination of Catholics in housing and employment[18].

In the 1960s Nationalist grievances at unionist discrimination within the state eventually led to large civil rights protests, which the government suppressed heavy-handedly, most notably on "Bloody Sunday". It was during this period of civil unrest that the paramilitary Provisional IRA, who favoured the creation of a united Ireland, began its campaign against what it called the "British occupation of the six counties". Other groups, legal and illegal on the unionist side, and illegal on the nationalist side, began to participate in the violence and the period known as the "Troubles" began, resulting in approximately 3000 deaths over the subsequent three decades. Owing to the civil unrest as "The Troubles" erupted, the British government suspended home rule in 1972 and imposed direct rule from Westminster.

Attempts were made to end "The Troubles", such as the Sunningdale Agreement of 1974 and Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, but ultimately were failures mainly due to the continuing level of violence. More recently in 1998, following a Provisional IRA cease fire and multi-party talks, the Good Friday Agreement was concluded and ratified by referendum in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This agreement attempts to restore self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of power sharing between the two communities. Violence has greatly decreased since the signing of the accord. The power-sharing assembly has only operated for brief periods and is currently suspended.

In 2001 the police force in Northern Ireland, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

On 28 July 2005, the Provisional IRA announced the end of its armed campaign and on 25 September 2005 international weapons inspectors supervised what they currently regard as the full decommissioning of the Provisional IRA's weapons.[19]