[StGeorge]

Originally Posted by Niamhxo

Well lets be honest here, If the British army had never come across the water to Ireland in the first place there would have been no IRA.

Hi Niamh,
I hadnt spotted this till others revived this thread, but its an interesting comment you make and goes down the lines of the chicken and the egg question.

Now obviously the IRA has been around for hundreds of years in one form or another, but im assuming that you are on about when the troops entered NI in 1969?

On researching this period, it looks like there had been a reasonable period of stability from the initial flareups in the early 1920s up until the 1960s. The WW2 probably occupied alot of peoples attention for awhile.
Irish Nationalism never disappeared and the original IRA members were around in various forms and with varying agendas and aims, and on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising (an Irish armed revolt in 1916 against Britain resulting eventually to talks and partition), the perceived resurection of the IRA led to the Unionists forming the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) who started the campaign of violence towards catholic targets. And it was then that a split occurred in the IRA thinking and the Provisional IRA appeared with intent on armed activity.
It was at this point that the Irish Republic issue a warning that it couldnt sit by and watch innocent catholics being murdered, which drove the Northern Ireland authorities to request that Britain helped out with Troops.
These Troops were initially welcomed by both sides of the innocents, but gradually over time the Nationalist community began to hate the troop presence and saw it as an occupation. (Bloody Sunday was a massive turning point in this attitude).

IMO Ireland has been buggered up since the Brit settlers of the 1600s, but colonialism was not confined to Ireland, who themselves carried out this action when invading and colonising Pictland(?) (now Scotland).

But i think that the real damage was done in the 1920s when there was an agreement for division, but it was done badly with Nationalists trapped on the wrong side of the border. The Troubles (as they have since been called) were always there just waiting to boil over, which they eventually did in 1960s.

You can compare this with other such bad politically managed border jigging with the Germany (post WW1 & WW2), Vietnam, Korea, and the former Yugoslavia. All failed attempts to seperate a given country due to political division. Korea only, remains divided like NI, a melting pot of tension that could one day spill over and burn the world again due to our ancestors inability to sort it out properly in the first place. And us now will suffer.

I end this long (yawn) piece by saying that NI today is relatively peaceful, and only the people of NI that truly want peace can ensure it never erupts again. Irrespective of what happened centuries ago, they are all Irish now and should work together as free Irish and alienate the trouble makers.
This Englishman will back them 100%.