北爱尔兰现状的历史影响因素(英文)

Factors in Irish and English History Which Affected the Present

Situation in Northern Ireland

The United Kingdom has four nations—England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Among these four parts, Northern Ireland is admittedly the smallest one. However, it is significant because of its political troubles in the long history.

Presently, the Northern Ireland is a quieter and more civilized place than it has been for the last thirty years. Bombs are few and tend to be local, minor events; the laws that once discriminated against Catholics have been systematically repealed; the police force has been formed into a new body called the Police Service of Northern Ireland, revising its protocols to make the police actions fair; the marches of both nationalist and loyalist communities are now oversaw by a Parades Commission. So what affected the present situation in Northern Ireland? There are many factors which are related to Irish and English history, and they will be introduced chronologically as follows.

The first period is before the partition of Ireland. During this period of time, Ireland’s colonial history, ethnical distinction along with different religion between Irish and British were the main factors. Recently, everybody knows that the full name o f the UK is “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. However, it hadn’t been correct to say so until 1921, before which year the whole Ireland belonged to the UK. Because of the colonial history, there had been a systematic and ingrained resentment of the British within the Irish culture. Desiring to be independent, Irish took many drastic measures such as campaigning parliament for “home-rule ” and engaging in guerrilla or terrorist activities against British institutions and the British military forces. (The IRA and Sinn Fein party, which had far-reaching influence in latter history, just appeared at that time.) After the continuous conflicts, there seemed to be an irresistible trend of Irish independence. Thus, in the year of 1921, a partition of Ireland was organized. The southern 26 counties formed an independent “free state”, while the 6 north -eastern counties remained a part of the UK.

The second period comes to the troublesome time under the partition of Ireland. Different religion led to the Northerners’ actual division into two groups. One is the nationalists who are Roman Catholics, and the other is the “Loyalist” or “Unionist” who are Protestants. Since then, the discrimination had existed against the minor Catholics. Conflicts were intensified with the result of the established pattern “tit-or-tat” or revenge killings. T he “Bloody Sunday”, as an important symbol of British oppression, will never be forgotten.

Facing these long-lasting aggravated conflicts, “three attempts” were once made. The first two attempts, a power-sharing executive set up in January 1974 and an all-government solution known as Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, are a little similar. They both to some extent involved the Southern Irish in Northern Irish affairs. However, neither of them provided a good solution to the Northern Ireland problem for they outraged the Protestant majority. Fortunately, the last attempt emerged on 10

April 1998 was a successful one—the Good Friday Agreement. Under this agreement, Northern Ireland became the only country in the world which is recognized both as an independent entity and is also governed by three separate jurisdictions —that of the Republic of Ireland, that of Great Britain, ant that of its own elected executive government of ten ministers. (Currently, Ulster has already reverted to direct rule from London because of the withdrawal of Loyalist ministers within Dublin government.)

I have put forward some factors in different periods. Certainly, there are still some more detailed ones that I haven’t mentioned yet. For example, the natural link between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, the First World War which suspended the Third Home Rule Bill, the American Civil Rights Movement which once stimulated the conflicts within Northerners and so on. You see, the present situation in Northern Ireland was indeed influenced by lots of complicated factors in history.