Northern Ireland Border Analysis

In this essay I will be talking about the Ireland/Northern Ireland border that has been in place since 1921 after the act that passed Home rule for Ireland and the partition of six counties to become Northern Ireland and stay part of the United Kingdom. The border is very much engrained in tradition for both sides and throughout the years the border has always been a source of violence and conflict. Throughout my essay I will talk about the historical background of the border, the conflict that has been seen because of the border, the reasons of the conflict and the solutions that were put in place to combat the conflict. The Ireland/Northern Ireland border can be classed as a state/territorial border because it is separated from the United

Such as during the invasions by the English throughout the 16th and 17th centuries left Ireland with a new Protestant class in a time were most of the people if not all were Catholic. Then the new Protestant class soon became the ruling and land-owning class and this most of the Catholic original Irish remained as poor tenant farmers on the land. The Penal laws were then introduced which were oppression laws that kept Catholics from gaining education, entering government or positions of power and much more. These laws triggered many rebellions such as the 1641 rebellion and the 1798 both were unsuccessful but showed Britain were Irish loyalty stood so they introduced the Act of Union on 1800, which made Ireland under British control and subsequently made it part of the United Kingdom. The Great famine from 1845-1852, just showed how poor the tenant farmers were and how much they relied on the potato, starvation, disease, death and migration were the norm during this time and help from Britain was almost non-existent. The next major event was to come in the form of Home rule legislation which was passed in 1914 and subsequently deferred, because of the outbreak of World War I. There were a group of republican that where fed up with the minimal political reform put in place and decided to do something about it. Then in April 1916, a rebellion broke out known as the Easter rising, ultimately they were unsuccessful with the rebellion but as many of the key leaders were executed this in turn gave more support and sympathy for their cause and to the dominant catholic republican group and showed the British just how little loyalty they had for them and how strong their Irish identity was. The divide between the two faiths in Northern Ireland and the hatred that goes with it can be seen because of the history