Политология : The Irish Question (Ирландский вопрос)

The Irish Question (Ирландский вопрос)

Moscow 1998

07.05.98

The Irish Question

Moscow

State Pedagogical University

Snigir Aleksei

The Plan:

1. The position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom

2. British policy towards Northern Ireland

3. Theories of political violence in the Northern Ireland conflict

I The Position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom

The inhabitants of Ireland are mainly Celtic by origin, and the majority

never accepted the Reformation. In 1801 a new law added Ireland to the

United Kingdom. By this time much of the land belonged to Protestant

English landlords, and the Act of Union followed the period in which

rebellions peasants were brutally suppressed. But in the six Northern

Counties the Protestants were not a dominant minority: they were the

majority of the population. Most of them were descendants of Scottish and

English settlers who had moved into Ireland several generations before.

They considered themselves to be Irish but remained as a distinct

community, and there was not much intermarriage. There had been conflicts

and battles between the two communities, still remembered along with their

heroes and martyrs.

In 1912, when the liberals were in power, with the support of the main

group of Irish MPs (for Ireland had seats in the UK parliament). The

House of Commons passed a Home Rule Bill,