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Celtic Ireland -

Since time immemorial, Ireland was an island of native Gaelic tradition, split into numerous and constantly fluctuating kingdoms. The first evidence of humanity on the Emerald Isle dates back to 31,000 BCE, with permanent residencies popping up around 10,500 BCE. No brand of Christianity was endemic to ancient Ireland, where pagan Celtic and Druidic traditions reigned for millennia.

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The introduction of Christianity -

No one is exactly sure how or when Christianity reached Ireland, but most historians agree it was sometime during the 5th century CE. The first confirmed Catholic missionary to reach Ireland was Palladius, a bishop from Gaul, who was followed shortly after by the far more famous Saint Patrick (pictured). Irish tribes were quickly converted after the arrival of these evangelicals, creating a spiritual culture that mixed ancient Irish tradition with the biblical canon. Then during the Protestant persecution of the 17th century in Great Britain, Protestants and Puritans fled to Ireland and slowly became a dominant demographic on an island that had been almost exclusively Catholic for centuries.

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The Irish Civil War and the Anglo-Irish Treaty -

Clashes between Ireland, the British occupation forces, and the ethnically divergent Catholics and Protestants persisted for centuries, culminating finally in the Irish Civil War and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which stipulated the official designation of an Irish Free State and the British territory of Northern Ireland.

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The birth of Northern Ireland -

Since 1921, the island of Ireland has always been divided. The six northernmost counties of the island include County Derry, which has seen some of the worst violence in Irish history. While the majority of denizens of the northern counties are Protestant, and the Republic of Ireland is almost entirely Catholic, there are still peoples of both ideologies living on both sides. For these individuals, it was frequently the case that they were met with ostracization or violence if they found themselves surrounded by the majority.

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Loyalism vs. Republicanism -

After the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 was signed, two vehemently opposed parties arose in Ireland. On one hand, there were "loyalists," who saw the division of Ireland as a fair and just end to the endlessly violent wars that had plagued the island for decades. Loyalists supported the continued British occupation and rule over Northern Ireland, despite fighting for so many centuries for a singular, united Ireland. The vast majority of loyalists happened to be Protestant, due in part to their closer ethnic and cultural connections to Great Britain.

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Loyalism vs. Republicanism -

The larger, and far more popular, political camp during the Troubles were the republicans. Republicans, also alternatively called revolutionaries, did not accept the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, taking an absolutist stance that if all of Ireland wasn't free from colonial rule, then none of Ireland was free. The vast majority of republicans were Catholic.

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The belligerents -

With the demands and the ideologies firmly and clearly stated by both sides, the largest obstacle was finding the manpower, munitions, funding, and unity to fight the war that both sides of the militant Irish saw as a gruesome, but necessary, step towards true peace on the Emerald Isle. The Troubles, not considered a true war, consisted of numerous guerilla warfare campaigns and tactics. While many paramilitary groups were formed on both sides of the conflict, the primary belligerents of the Troubles were the IRA (for a time the official Irish Republican Army, and later a number of paramilitary groups broken off from the official IRA), fighting for Irish unification. On the side of the loyalists were the notorious Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), a state-sanctioned police force that was well-funded and well-equipped by Britain, as well as the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

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A fractured IRA -

The Irish Civil War and the Troubles that followed soon after were far more polarizing and complex than the Irish Revolutionary War. During most of the 20th century, the belligerents were, in large part, neighbors against neighbors, who had in recent memory been fighting side by side, unified against an occupational force.

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A fractured IRA -

The first split of the Irish Republican Army occurred simultaneously with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. This gave way to the anti-Treaty "Irregulars" and the pro-Treaty "Staters," the latter led by revolutionary Michael Collins (pictured). By the time the Troubles were in full swing, the IRA "Irregulars" had fractured even further into numerous smaller groups, all of whom were antagonistic towards each other and refused to to cooperate with one another. The largest of these were the Provisional IRA, who recognized neither the Northern Irish government nor the government of the Irish Republic.

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Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland -

A cautious peace might have lasted for many more decades in Ireland if it hadn't been for the horrid and unabashed mistreatment of religious minorities. Frequently compared to the Jewish pogroms of Continental Europe, the Catholics of Northern Ireland, particularly in Belfast and Derry, were subjected to constant abuse, frequent and unexplained home invasions, expulsion from certain parts of the cities, and also the forced relocation into some of the poorest, least-developed neighborhoods of the region.

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Northern Irish sectarianism -

Northern Irish sectarianism was rampant during the 20th century, and even still today to a certain extent. Despite being as legally protected under the law as their Protestant neighbors, the security of Catholics was not a priority of the loyalist authorities. Catholics were unlawfully evicted, robbed in the open streets, physically beaten, and, in some cases, suffered the destruction of their neighborhoods.

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American inspiration -

By the time the Troubles started, in the late 1960s, the world was already in the midst of a massive civil rights movement. The civil rights groups on both sides of Ireland took the lessons of Martin Luther King Jr. to heart, and organized civil disobedience events inspired by Dr. King's famously effective sit-ins and marches.

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The Derry Housing Protest -

One of the many forms of ostracization Catholics living in Northern Ireland faced, particularly in Derry, was inhumane treatment from the many landlords in Northern Ireland who had adopted the practices of Peter Rachman (not pictured), a landlord notorious for his mistreatment and exploitation of his tenants. Catholics were being evicted and subjected to extreme rent hikes at a rate disproportionate to their Protestant neighbors, creating a rapidly growing homelessness problem in Northern Irish Catholic communities.

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The Derry Housing Protest -

The Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC), formed by six tenant activists, initiated a campaign of disrupting housing board meetings, organizing sit-downs on major roadways, and squatting in abandoned houses. On October 5, 1968, a DHAC protest in Derry ended in violence on the part of the RUC. This event is widely considered one of the first conflicts of the Troubles.

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The Belfast-Derry March -

Directly modeled after the Selma-Montgomery March that occurred in the United States in 1965,  just four years before, the Belfast-Derry March was organized and led by the People's Democracy republican group, led by the 21-year old activist Bernadette Devlin (pictured).

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Burntollet Bridge ambush -

For much of the journey from Belfast northwest to Derry, which occurred on January 4, 1969, the People's Democracy marchers were protected by republican soldiers. However, when the congregation passed across the Burntollet Bridge, mere hours away from Derry City, 300 loyalist militants, about a third of whom were off-duty RUC soldiers, ambushed the marchers, raining down quarry stones, iron rods, and steel nails on the unarmed marchers.

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Burntollet Bridge ambush -

By the end of the ambush, there were no casualties on either side, but hundreds of marchers were severely injured. It has been said that this ambush, in the wake of the housing protest, firmly established the Troubles as a unique era of constant and serious conflict on the Emerald Isle.

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The 1969 riots -

After months of isolated clashes and ambushes, August 1969 saw an explosion of violence across the Irish border, numerous events of which are known collectively as the 1969 riots.

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Battle of the Bogside -

The catalyst of the August riots occurred in Derry. During a planned loyalist march that edged dangerously close to the Catholic/republican Bogside neighborhood, republican militants and civilians alike attacked the loyalist marchers with stones and makeshift incendiaries. Soon, the RUC responded with armored vehicle and riot gas attacks that pushed deep into the Bogside.

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Battle of the Bogside -

Thousands of previously uninvolved civilians armed themselves with stones, nails, petrol bombs, and the occasional firearm, and by August 14 had pushed the loyalist forces back from their neighborhood. Exact numbers of casualties are unavailable, but it is said that at least 1,000 of those involved sustained serious injuries.

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Belfast, August 13 -

In Belfast where, unlike Derry, Catholic republicans were a small minority in a city of Protestant loyalists, the fighting was much more gruesome. On August 13, an IRA march was organized in support of their allies in Derry. A largely peaceful march made its way through Belfast until it arrived at the Hastings Street police station. Here, a small group separated from the march and attacked the police station with petrol bombs, starting waves of city-wide violence.

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Belfast, August 13 -

Cars were bombed and overturned to create barriers, businesses of both Catholic and Protestant ownership were destroyed, and paramilitary IRA rifle fire was heard for one of the first times. The fighting continued until August 15, during which time nearly 2,000 Catholic families had fled to the nearby town of Andersonstown, 18 individuals had been killed, over 750 had been injured, and no less than 150 civilian homes were burnt to the ground.

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The RUC's housefire campaigns -

Arson quickly became a favorite tactic of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and its paramilitary counterparts. With Catholic and thus, assumedly, republican populations being concentrated in small neighborhoods throughout largely loyalist cities, it was efficient and made economical sense to literally burn out the revolutionary "strongholds." Almost all of these homes, of course, belonged to poor, civilian families.

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The arrival of the British Army -

The August riots of 1969 brought with them the arrival of the Army branch of the Royal Armed Forces (RAF). British soldiers were sent to aid the URC in Belfast, and remained in Northern Ireland for nearly 40 years.

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Operation Banner -

The presence of the RAF in Northern Ireland, codenamed Operation Banner, made history as the single longest military operation in British history. Over 300,000 RAF troops served in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 2007, and were responsible for monitoring border checkpoints, carrying out counterintelligence operations, and conducting raids in suspected republican territories.

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The peace walls -

In response to the 1969 riots, the first "peace walls" began to be built throughout Belfast and other cities, effectively segregating certain, particularly volatile, areas of the cities. While originally few in number and small in size, today there are close to 100 walls, adding up to 21 miles (35 km) in total.

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The stance of the Republic of Ireland -

The Republic of Ireland, led by Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Jack Lynch (pictured), while in full and vocal ideological support of the republican paramilitary groups, had very little to offer in the way of material support. Irish Defense Forces set up field hospitals along the front lines, but rarely engaged in violence. Lynch delivered what is considered one of the most important television announcements in Irish history on August 13, in response to the events in Derry and Belfast, during which he claimed that "the re-unification of the national territory can provide the only permanent solution for the problem."

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Resurgence of violence in the 1970s -

The building of the peace walls and the arrivals of the British Army quieted down the violence, for a time. However, it didn't take long for clashes to restart in full force after certain cataclysmic events throughout the first months of 1970. After the arrest of young republican revolutionary hero Bernadette Devlin, firefights broke out in Derry and Belfast in June of 1970, leaving seven killed.

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The Falls Curfew -

A series of events that are now referred to as the Falls Curfew began on July 3, when RUC troops, with British support, conducted a weapons search throughout the Falls neighborhood of Belfast. The search was quick and largely unsuccessful (about 15 revolvers total were confiscated), but it was peaceful, that is until a group of stone-throwing youths stopped the troops from leaving.

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The Falls Curfew -

Suddenly surrounded by civilians and being attacked with rifles, petrol bombs, and stones, the RUC quickly called for reinforcements. Local IRA leaders quickly called for an official attack, and a firefight lasted between the belligerents for four hours until the Northern Irish powers imposed an indefinite curfew. Journalists within the Falls were arrested, allowing the British and URC troops to act with a "new harshness," which included the abuse of civilians and the looting of businesses. The curfew was brought to an end when a group of nearly 3,000 women and children marched their way through the curfew lines into the Falls from nearby Andersonstown with food and supplies for the besieged civilians.

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Bloody Sunday -

The most blatant act of violent oppression carried out by British troops occurred in Derry on January 30, 1972, in the massacre that is known as Bloody Sunday. Some 15,000 civilians were participating in a march organized by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), when a group of soldiers opened fire on the unarmed crowd. In the chaos that ensued, 26 Catholic civilians, all of whom were unarmed and either fleeing or trying to help those already wounded, were shot, run over, or beaten by British forces. Of those 26, 14 were murdered.

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The aftermath of Bloody Sunday -

Innumerable clashes ensued as a result of the Bloody Sunday massacre, making 1972 the single most destructive year of the Troubles, with the year's fatalities adding up to nearly 500. Over half of those killed were civilians. The rest of the 1970s saw the rise of a much angrier, much more violent, IRA. The decade was marked by an increase of guerilla warfare tactics and the indiscriminate bombings of military, government, and civilian areas, with some violence even reaching the island of Britain itself. Funding and armaments also began to pour in from places like Libya and South Africa, who wished to use the Troubles as a proxy war.

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The 1981 hunger strike -

As the conflict ebbed and flowed throughout the decades, one of the final major historical events of the Troubles was the 1981 hunger strike, enacted by IRA prisoners kept in the Maze prison outside of Belfast. The prisoners were protesting the inhumane conditions they were being kept in. The strike received worldwide attention when one of the strike leaders, Bobby Sands, was elected to the Irish republican parliament while imprisoned. Nine strikers died of starvation, including Sands, before the strike was called off in October of 1981, with most concessions being granted to the organized prisoners.

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The weariness of war -

While the 1981 hunger strike did in fact galvanize a new generation of IRA recruits, the island of Ireland as a whole was growing weary of the violence, which had come to be seen as less righteous and less principled as the decades dragged on. Peace advocacy organizations began to grow on both sides of the island, and militant organizations, both paramilitary and official, tried to improve their public image amongst civilians. 

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Trouble finding peace -

Numerous ceasefires were called during the 1990s, all inevitably broken by extremists on both sides. The 1996 bombing of Manchester carried out by IRA militants put an end to the 1994 ceasefire, and set off a chain of revenge attacks, reaching a climax in August 1998, mere months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, when the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA)—a small extremist offshoot of the IRA formed only a year before—carried out a car bomb attack in the Northern Irish city of Omagh, which killed 29 civilians. This was the largest number of deaths caused by a single bombing during all the decades of the Troubles.

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The Good Friday Agreement and the beginning of peace -

The Good Friday Agreement, signed on April 10, 1998, by the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Irish representatives of the United Kingdom, marked the beginning of peace on the Emerald Isle. While some tragedies caused by dissenting parties, like the aforementioned Omagh bombing, persisted, widespread violence was finally put to an end with the agreement that stipulated prisoner swaps, demilitarization, thorough and widespread reforms in the Northern Irish police forces, the eventual departure of British forces, and a dedication of the equity of civil rights of all citizens across the island. The last remnants of the provisional IRA, who held onto the dream of one united Ireland, officially announced the end of their military operations in 2005, leading to the St Andrews Agreement of 2007, which officially put an end to the Troubles and ushered in a new era of peace on the island of Ireland.

Sources: (History) (Britannica) (National Geographic)

See also: The worst incidents of wartime friendly fire in history

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