Trespasses

The term “the Troubles” refers to a period of conflict that deeply affected the social and political landscape of Northern Ireland during the end of the 20th century. The Troubles lasted roughly 30 years, beginning in the late 1960s and ending with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The sectarian conflict divided Northern Ireland’s population along religious and political lines. Most Catholics saw themselves as Irish and wanted independence from British control while the majority of Protestants considered themselves British and wished to remain part of the United Kingdom. Those seeking an independent Ireland were known as republicans, and their opponents were known as loyalists. The roots of the Troubles stretch back centuries due to England’s involvement in Irish history. Since the 1500s, Ireland was under British rule, and Britain’s exploitative colonizing practices sowed animosity between the mostly Catholic Irish people and Protestant settlers. In 1920, the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act, which divided Ireland in two: “Majority-Catholic Ireland gained its independence, and Northern Ireland, billed as ‘a Protestant state for Protestant people,’ remained part of the United Kingdom” (Blakemore, Erin. “What Were the Troubles that Ravaged Northern Ireland?” National Geographic, 2022). From the beginning, Northern Ireland was plagued by sectarian violence, and systemic inequality limited Catholics’ economic and political freedoms.