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by
Ron Grove
~
IRELAND
disabled thousands more) over the
past decade alone.
Only days after that grim anniver–
sary, violence once again burst forth
with a vengeance in the "Bloody
Monday" bombing assassination of
79-year-old Earl Mountbatten of
Burma, Britain's wartime naval hero
and Queen Elizabeth Il's cousin, by
guerrillas of the Provisional Irish Re–
publican Army (IRA). The bombing
of Mountbatten's yacht in Donegal
Bay off the west Irish coast was fol–
lowed five hours later by the ambush
and murder of 18 British soldiers in
Northern lreland, also perpetrated
by the IRA.
This bloody resurgence of head–
line-grabbing violence was a clear
signa! to all that the war in Northern
Ireland had escalated toa new leve!,
heightening already dangerous ten-
8
sions. Many believe a new wave of
terrorism is on the way.
Stormy Hlstory
Violence is nothing new to Ireland.
And Britain has been enmeshed in it
since 1155, when Pope Adrian IV
granted English King Henry 11
lordship over the Emerald Isle. For
Britain, Ireland has been nothing but
trouble ever since. And from the Ir–
ish viewpoint, Britian has been noth–
ing but a curse.
Religion has played a large part in
the lrish imbroglio from the start.
Catholicism had been introduced into
Ireland in 432 A.D. by Patrick, a
Roman Catholic bishop who subse–
quently became a patron saint of Ire–
land. Over a thousand years later,
Protestant British monarchs, includ–
ing Queen Elizabeth 1 and James 1,
drove much of the native Irish Catho–
lic population out of the northern por-
tions of the island, replacing themwith
tens of thousands of loyal Protestants
from Scotland and England -the an–
cestors of the majority of modero-day
Ulstermen, or Protestant Scots-Irish.
Their strategy was basedon the prem–
ise that a Protestant community in
Ireland would weaken Catholic oppo–
sition to English rule.
In 1649 Oliver <::romwell, the
Protestant "Lord Protector" of tem–
porarily kingless England, landed in
Dublin with his army of 20,000 lron–
sides and unleashed a reign of terror
upon lreland in an attempt to extin–
guish the spirit of rebellion forever–
for which his name is cursed by
lrishmen to this day.
Four decades later, in 1690, En–
gland's Protestant King William of
Orange routed Catholic forces under
James
11,
England's 1ast Catholic mon–
arch, at the decisive Battle of the
Boyne--sealing Protestant control
in
Ulster for centuries to come. Banners
bearing the slogan "Remember 1690"
are still seen in parades in Protestant
areas of Northern Ireland during Ul–
ster'sannual "marchingseason."
On January 1, 1801, the "Act of
Union" took effect, bringing full po–
litical union between Great Britain
and Ireland-much to the chagrín of
the majority of Irishmen. British no–
toriety reached even greater lows a
few decades later during the Irish
potato famine of the 1840s, when
direly needed food was exported
from
Ireland to England while the
lrish were dying in multiple tens of
thousands of starvation.
Partltlon
Tliroughout tbe following decades,
the "Irisb Question" continued to
hang heavy about t he neck of Britain.
The political dilemma often domi–
nated larger foreign and domestic
policy questions. Clamorings for
"Home Rule" in Ireland were regu–
larly heard in London's Houses of
Parliament
in
Westminster, and the
debate raged heatedly.
Irish sentiments finally carne to a
head in 1916, in the so-called "Easter
Week Uprising" in Dublin- the start
of the modero battle for indepen–
dence from Britain. Led by tbe Sinn
Fein (a political party demanding the
political and cultural independence
The PLAIN TRUTH