{"id":33154,"date":"2017-04-23T13:32:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-23T17:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=33154"},"modified":"2017-04-26T08:48:05","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T12:48:05","slug":"brief-history-troubles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/brief-history-troubles\/","title":{"rendered":"A brief history of &#8216;The Troubles&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p class=\"meta-top\">Readers are finding this article from the CJP 2009 <a href=\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/issues\/2016-17\/\">Peacebuilder<\/a> file by Brendan McAllister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"meta-top\">By <strong>Brendan McAllister<\/strong> | February 25th, 2009<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4590\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_33172\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33172\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/04\/brief-history-troubles\/brendan-mcallister-300x258\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-33172\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-33172 size-medium\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2017\/04\/brendan-mcallister-300x258-300x258.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"258\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-33172\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brendan McAllister, founding director of Mediation Northern Ireland.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Brendan McAllister, founding director of Mediation Northern Ireland,\u00a0 attended EMU\u2019s Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 1996 and \u201998. From \u201cRestorative Justice and Peace in Northern Ireland,\u201d an address by McAllister (SPI \u201996 &amp; \u201998) at the European Forum for Restorative Justice in Barcelona, June 16, 2006. (Reprinted as originally written.)<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Since I should not assume that everyone here is informed about\u00a0the nature of the conflict in Northern Ireland, I will give you a\u00a0quick history lesson.<\/p>\n<p>Centuries ago Ireland came under the control of England. As\u00a0part of that process, large numbers of English and Scottish people\u00a0were encouraged to settle in the north of Ireland. While most of\u00a0the native Irish were Catholic, most of the settlers were Protestant.<\/p>\n<p>At the start of the twentieth century there was a sustained campaign\u00a0to break the link with Britain.<\/p>\n<p>However, in the north there was a campaign to maintain the\u00a0link or union with Great Britain. On both sides of this argument,\u00a0significant numbers were prepared to use violence in support of\u00a0their cause.<\/p>\n<p>In 1920 the British settled the matter by dividing Ireland \u2013\u00a0granting independence to most of it and keeping the northern\u00a0part within the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>However, around 40% of northerners were Irish nationalists \u2013\u00a0people who wanted independence from Britain.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, from its creation in 1920, Northern Ireland was a\u00a0state whose citizens differed over their national allegiance.<\/p>\n<p>Consequently, for several decades, the leaders of the Protestant,\u00a0unionist majority, discriminated against the Catholic, nationalist\u00a0minority.<\/p>\n<p>The laws and institutions of the State reflected this discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>By the 1960s, frustrations within the Catholic, nationalist community\u00a0found expression in a campaign for civil rights. The state\u00a0responded with brutal force.<\/p>\n<p>Within the Catholic community, there were people who began\u00a0a new campaign of violence to end British rule and end the partition\u00a0of Ireland. These people are known as republicans.<\/p>\n<p>Within the Protestant community, there were people who took\u00a0up the gun to defend the link with Britain. These people are\u00a0known as loyalists.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-4591\" src=\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/files\/2009\/07\/british-isles-253x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"253\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p>While the majority of Catholics (nationalists) and Protestants\u00a0(unionists) did not support the use of violence, the terrorist campaign\u00a0fought by republicans and loyalists and the State\u2019s campaign\u00a0of counter-terrorism by the use of the British army and the police,\u00a0meant that the Northern Ireland conflict became defined by\u00a0widespread violence.<\/p>\n<p>3,500 were killed. Thousands more were injured. Thousands\u00a0were traumatized by violence. Thousands were sent to prison.\u00a0However by the 1990s there was recognition that violence would\u00a0not deliver a solution to the conflict and that any effort to find\u00a0a political answer would only succeed if republican and loyalist\u00a0paramilitaries were given a voice at the negotiating table.<\/p>\n<p>In Ireland, over the last 15 years or so, we have been living\u00a0through a period known as \u2018the Peace Process\u2019. This period has\u00a0seen the establishment of political negotiations, ceasefires by the\u00a0main republican and loyalist paramilitary organizations and fundamental\u00a0reform of aspects of our system of governance in order to command the respect and allegiance of all our citizens.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026[P]rogress has been so profound that it is possible now to\u00a0speak of the end of \u2018the Troubles\u2019 \u2013 a 30-year period when our\u00a0conflict was expressed in violence and a generation grew up in the\u00a0shadow of the gun and the bomb.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0For more information on Eastern Mennonite University&#8217;s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/cjp\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Readers are finding this article from the CJP 2009 Peacebuilder file by Brendan McAllister. By Brendan McAllister | February 25th, 2009 Brendan McAllister, founding director of Mediation Northern Ireland,\u00a0 attended <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/brief-history-troubles\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"more-link\">... read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">about A brief history of &#8216;The Troubles&#8217;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12503],"tags":[],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-33154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cjp"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A brief history of &#039;The Troubles&#039; - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/brief-history-troubles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A brief history of &#039;The Troubles&#039; - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Readers are finding this article from the CJP 2009 Peacebuilder file by Brendan McAllister. 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