Going back in history

The problems between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland started a long time ago and are more political than religious.

For centuries the English had tried to gain control of Ireland. Until the sixteenth century, England controlled only a small area of Ireland around Dublin. English rulers, including King Henry VIII (1491 - 1547), Queen Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603) and Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658) gradually conquered the whole of Ireland. Ireland became an English colony in 1607.

The last area to resist the English was the province of Ulster, in the north of Ireland, but in the end the Irish were defeated. The English punished the Catholic people of Ulster for their resistance by giving their lands to Protestants from Scotland and England.

In 1921, an independent Irish state was set up, that is the Republic of Ireland. Six counties in the north of Ireland were dominated and controlled by Protestants, who refused to join the new Irish state. These six counties stayed part of the UK and are now called Northern Ireland.

Which of these words do you associate with Northern Ireland?

a  United Kingdom

b  IRA

c  violence

d  beauty

e  peace

f  UVF

g  mountains

h  independence

Michael Vaughan-Rees, Geraldine Sweeney, Picot Cassidy: In Britain; Cornelsen Verlag, 2000, page 88