Nessie School of Languages

Introduction

We would like to have a short introduction of the
difficult political and religious problem of Northern Ireland by stating the
positions that the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are holding
nowadays towards the future of this region of the Emerald Isle.

The official British position is that Northern Ireland
is part of the United Kingdom. This view is shared by all parties, although the
Labour Party is in favour of the unification of Ireland, when most people in
Northern Ireland support it. Until 1993 most political talks have wanted to
restore a devolved government, with
power shared between unionists (protestants) and nationalists (Catholics). Most
historians and experts on the matter are willing to remark that the 1985
Anglo-lrish Agreement between the British and Irish governments accepted that
the Dublin government had the right to be consulted on Northern Irish affairs.

Meanwhile, Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution
are asking for the 32 counties of Ireland. In fact, it has been modified by the
Irish government’s acceptance in the Anglo-Irish Agreement that any move towards unity required the
agreement of a majority in Northern Ireland. The same agreement gives the
Irish government a role in Northern Irish affairs, which tends to be accepted
by  Northern nationalists.

On the other side of the barrier are the Paramilitary
Organisations. The Republican paramilitary groups, of which the IRA is by far the most important one,
have historically believed that only force will remove the British from
Ireland. Initially, they saw themselves as defenders of the Northern Catholic
minority, but later spread their military activities throughout Northern
Ireland, Britain and Europe. Luckily, the IRA declared a cease-fire.

A different matter is the paramilitary protestant
groups: According to some historians: There
is disagreement about whether loyalist violence is essentially reactive, but
certainly the pattern of loyalist violence has been stronger than republican
violence. There has been a major change in the form of violence since 1990,
with loyalists for the first time killing more victims than republicans. It has
been speculated that this rise in loyalist violence may be connected to the
failure of all the political talks.

Finally we must say that since the twelfth century, it
is possible to notice significant shifts in the Irish problem. Until 1921, it
was essentially an Irish-English problem and focused on Ireland’s attempt to
achieve independence from Britain. From 1921 the emphasis changed to
relationships in the island of Ireland, between what later became the Republic
of Ireland and Northern Ireland; this issue has revived since the signing of
the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985. Since 1969, the main problem has been the
relationship between Catholics and Protestants in Ulster.

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