Word: irelanders
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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This is the second of a two-part series about the present troubles in Northern Ireland. Last week's section discussed the violent emnity between Catholics and Protestants in Ulster...
...British created the sectarian problem in Ulster; they have perpetuated it; and now they must solve it. Whatever sway the paramilitaries have in their respective communities, they cannot claim to arbitrate the politics of Northern Ireland. That unenviable honor belongs to the British government. No one doubts that it can determine the future fate of the province, whether it lapses into outright civil war or retakes the road to peace...
Great Britain retains this incongruous piece of territorial jurisdiction because, in a sense, its past policies have succeeded. Northern Ireland is one of the few places in the British Empire where colonialism reached its intended fruition. Whereas in other colonies the British never established their own people firmly enough, or inevitably alienated them when they did, in Ulster they were completely effective in their creation of Protestant plantations. The Protestants subordinated and supplanted the native (and hostile) Catholic population, and established themselves as the loyal majority. To the discomfiture of the British government, they have remained steadfastly loyal ever since...
...British colonization was a Pyrrhic success. To a great extent, British policy failed in Ireland and continues to fail in Northern Ireland. To be specific, it is the English who have failed. As a nation, they have never understood "those impossible people," the Irish, nor truly cared to, and the Irish dislike of the English is legendary. At every turn of English policy towards Ireland--with Essex, with Cromwell, with the 'black and tans' (infamous British in the war of independence)--there is ceaseless bloodshed, rebellion and repression...
...fabled Irish Republican Army in 1969 split into two wings: the Marxist "officials," who have temporarily gone underground, and the Provisionals, who carry on the struggle for Eire Nua (a New Ireland) on behalf of Ulster's Catholic minority. Since 1969 the Provos have killed 1,800, including 460 policemen or soldiers. But 1,000 Prove supporters are in jail, and the Ulster Catholics, who once idolized them, are weary of violence...