By the beginning of the 19th century, Irish hatred for the English and the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland knew no bounds.
Two
extremely cold winters brought about the potato blight and the Great
Famine of 1845 sent forth its shivers of death to the Irish native
population.
The impact of this one tragedy on the population was
dramatically severe. Census numbers dropped from over 8 million in the
early 1840s to just above 4 million by the early 1900s.
During
this time also, a number if ill-fated rebellions were attempted,
notably by Charles Parnell, Robert Emmet, Thomas Meagher and the
leaders of the Fenian Uprising. All failed as abruptly and bloodily
as had similar, previous efforts, but the seeds of rebellion against
what the native Irish perceived as a cruel and tyrannical crown had
been sown and would continue
at intervals to sprout forth in full bloom.
Most of Ireland remained Nationalist,
while the north-east province
of Ulster became predominantly Unionist (in favor
of maintaining the
union with England), Protestant and increasingly more elitist as the
Industrial Revolution brought its wealth and prosperity to a minute few.
By
the end of the first decade of the 1900s, several attempts to
introduce Home Rule
for Ireland had failed. In 1912, when a
third
attempt was made, the Unionists in
the Northeast were so opposed that
they formed the Ulster Volunteers while the Catholic Home Rulers
formed the Irish Volunteers, both with the dedicated goal
of
maintaining their individual positions by force if necessary.
An
uprising at Easter in 1916 failed, but the aggressive use of force by
the authorities against the rebels only served to unite Catholics and
even others to a more determined effort for freedom from the Crown.
In
1919, an Irish Republic government
was assembled in Dublin, but when
this was unable to come to any form of agreement with Britain, a new
form of guerilla warfare was instituted, under the leadership of
Michael Collins.
After a brief period of bloody killings and
maimings, the new Irish and the British governments agreed to a truce
in 1921, whereby the Irish Republic was abolished and the Irish Free
State was instituted
as a dominion of the British Empire,
similar to
the legal but self-governing parliaments of Australia and Canada.
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Ireland opted out of this arrange-
ment and remained part of the union
with Great Britain, but was permitted to exercise self control with its
own parliament.
In 1937, the Irish Free State renamed itself the Republic of Ireland, and in 1948 seceded from the dominion of Great Britain.
From
then to the present day, the 26 counties have remained fiercely
Catholic and Nationalist, while the 6 counties of Ulster have been
predominantly Protestant and Unionist.
After a series of
economic ups and downs, the Republic of Ireland emerged in the late
1980s as having one of the world's best growth rates, and the Celtic
Tiger was born. Modern Irish culture has adopted liberal social ideals
as the power of the Catholic Church has diminished as faithful
attendance to church has dropped to all time lows.
In the North,
from 1921 to 1970, the six counties were ruled by the Unionist party.
It's first Prime Minister, James Craig, declared to the world that
Ulster would henceforth be a "Protestant State for a Protestant
people". Discrimination against the minority Catholics continued to be
severe (as also was the reverse in the south).
In the late
60s, mutual hatred and distrust boiled over into full-fledged riots
which resulted in British troops being deployed in the province to help
restore order. Much like the Black and Tans of the 1920s, all that
happened was a further increase in hatred and distrust from one side
to the other.
The troubles continued to escalate and in 1972,
the Ulster parliament was abolished and the civil war between various
factions took the lives of over three thousand men, women, and children.
The Good Friday Agreement of 1998, developed a sharing of power in
Northern Ireland, but continued infighting resulted in the elected
Assembly being suspended in October 2002.
Recent elections may
reflect the direction in which the country is moving. Moderate parties
were effectively replaced by die-hard Unionist and Free Ireland
politicians.
What the future holds is difficult to assess, but
in the words of the old cliched saying... "the only thing that history
teaches us is that men don't learn from history".
Nothing could
be more true for the land and people of Ireland. Maybe one of these
days we will come to our senses and live like the educated and
sophisticated people we claim to be.
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