Northern Ireland: Conflict

Take a look at the following video.

This video shows you scenes from the height of conflict between Catholics and the Protestants. Click through to the Youtube site to look at the provenance of the video.

Do you think this video is reliable and useful in understanding who is to be blamed for the conflict in Northern Ireland?

If you read the comments you will realise that this conflict is not as simple as a clash between religion, but it is of differing loyalties.

The Protestants, who tended to be descendants from immigrants from Britain, want Northern Ireland to be part of the United Kingdom. These people we call the Unionists, who wants a union between Northern Ireland the United Kingdom.

On the other hand, we have the majority Irish Catholics, who have no sense of belonging to Britian and the United Kingdom. They identify largely with Republic of Ireland, seeing themselves as one people. Britain and United Kingdom were foreign and alien. Since they are Irish, and they want to be a part of the Republic Ireland, we call them the Loyalists.