A question about Ireland and conflicts there?

Question

okay well i know there is/was struggle in ireland between northern ireland and southern ireland. and northern were mainly protestants and there color was orange. my family ancestory is northern protestant irish. sooo were we the bad guys?

Answer 1

well i did this fo my history course wk n if u ask me the protestant irish wer worse than the catholic bt ther kinda both as bad as each othr xx

Answer 2

The conflict:

1/2 of Ireland remained Catholic

1/2 of Ireland converted to Protestant

(not quite sure which was which)

Technically, it's a "holy war" (started in the New World times) that the Catholics started because they were losing members.  It is STILL going on even today, causing thousands of unnecessary deaths every year.

There really is no bad guy.  If one group of people want to have one faith, and another group wants to have another faith, then they should respect each other's opinions.

Northern Island seems to be the bigger aggressor, as they send out more guerilla units to stir up trouble.  But the country of Ireland is an amazing place, anybody who has been there or has seen pictures of it will agree with that.  And several times a year that beauty is shattered and replaced with blood, death, and chaos for a few minutes or hours.

The hatred between the two groups is almost bred into the citizens from birth.  If they would stop fighting, and Ireland reunited as one, it would be a much more beautiful place.

Answer 3

That depends on who you ask

To a Loyalist - no, your family were the good guys, to a Republican - no, you were the bad guys.

But now, thanks to the peace protest - all are (or at least should be) trying to make the province work in the interests of ALL it's citizens.

For more information see:

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId...

http://republican-news.org/current/news/

http://www.nio.gov.uk/the-agreement

Answer 4

The conflict has not been between Northern Ireland and Eire, but between British Protestants and Catholic Irishmen mainly within Northern Ireland.

Answer 5

The Protestants of Northern Ireland were sent there in the 1600's and have been trying to get by since then surrounded by people who had no choice about having their lands taken and given away, so they have always had a bit of seige mentality. They haven't been perfect and because they have had more power than the Catholics of NI, they have had opportunity to wield that power against the Catholics.  But I wouldn't say your ancestors were the bad guys, unless your last name is Cromwell.

Answer 6

Yup, we were the bad guys - my family originated in County Tyrone.  Except we thought the other folk were the bad guys.  I guess emigrating to the Americas wasn't such a bad idea...

Answer 7

I am Irish republican (Dublin)

and the you are not really the bad guys. The conflict has stopped now since te good friday agreement where the IRA agreed to cease fire. But before that we were the bad guys to northen Ireland and Northern Ireland were the bad guys to us. We were the ones who attacked more throught guerilla warfare but the whole thing was pretty even since northern Ireland had the British Army. The entire thing was over the 6 counties that were "taken" from us:

Armagh

Derry

Down

Fermanagh

Tyrone

and

Antrim.

During the height of the troubles every person from the republic of Ireland was treated much the same as people might treat someone from Afganistan who wears a turban and has a beard ie. terrorist.

hope this answers your question and no you wern't the bad guys

Answer 8

You were originally the invaders, yes. However, it's a fallacy to believe that there were good guys and bad guys in history. Your ancestors were told to convert or immigrate to Ireland, and, to justify your settlement, it was explained to you, told to you, passed down from generation to generation, that Catholic Irish were savage barbarians, and that you had to civilize them, or live next to them in a civilized manner, at least. The problem was that no one ever wants to be "civilized", because that always means subjugation, poverty, loss of land, and loss of national identity (think of the "civilizing" of the Africans in the American South, or of the Native Americans in the west).

The irony, of course, was that Ireland during the Dark Ages was one of the last true beacons of "civilizations" as we know it, keeping literature, music, and peace alive in a time of constant war.

However, it is often the story of the past that, to justify greed for land, people convince themselves and others that their neighbors are less than human, whether they be Native American, Irish, Jewish, or Turkish. Don't beat yourself up about it; almost every culture that ever existed did it; most nations exist today because just such a culture carved off a chunk of land for themselves.

Back on topic:

Personally, I'm of Irish Catholic descent. What happened was that Cromwell invaded us, and wanted to find a way to hold onto this isolated island with a totally different culture than Britain. How do you do this? Machiavelli suggests colonies: putting retired soldiers and their families on stolen land. This makes a profit and puts a growing population of loyalists in the newly captured territory.

Recognizing the growing menace, the Catholics fight back mercilessly. The colonists look at this and assume that Catholics are savages (they happened to already dislike Catholics anyway). They fight back mercilessly, subjugating these uncivilized masses. Catholics fight back harder. And so on. This lasted from the 1700s to the 1990s, and I seriously doubt that it's over yet. It is precisely the idea of "good guys" and "bad guys" that fuels this conflict. If, for a few moments, we looked at each other as human beings, I don't understand why we can't just get along. Until then, the conflict continues until the Republic of Ireland is reconquered or all Ulstermen are driven back to Britain. Unnecessary cruelty often appears as a result of colonization efforts. People aren't good or evil; it is the situations that they are in that breed evil acts.