External Intervention in Northern Ireland Affairs

1951 Words8 Pages
The imperialistic actions carried out by Britain in 1541 had consequences reaching into the future. This is illustrated through King Henry VIII, forcing the Irish Government to declare him king and later shown by the unrest in Ulster where Irish land was resumed by the British to be handed to British and Scottish Settlers of Protestant faith. The consequences of these events were the Ulster revolts in October 1641 and later the anti-catholic laws, brought in on September 11 1649, while using excuse ‘revenge’, and eventually ended with British military involvement yet again. From these events tensions continued to spiral out of control and the rift between Irish nationalists and the Unionists, along with religion, grew to one of great lengths. The events mentioned were only a starting point, with many violent acts to come but they do provide the base of which the Nationalist feeling of unhappiness stems from. The events that lead to the immediate intervention by the British, being the riots of 1968, bloody Sunday and the Omagh bombings all helped to stem the conflict, illustrating that it was at the stage where external intervention was required, and tensions were present because of British imperialist action taken in the 17th century. Without the external intervention, the agreement which solidified the peace, the Belfast or Good Friday agreement, the peace process would have been significantly slower if present at all. Had Britain not have intervened in the Irish conflict for the final time with a true interest in ending the violence, we could well be seeing reports of terrorism on our nightly news broadcast today. To understand how actions in 1541 by the British fuelled the fire of conflict, the background of Irish history needs to be covered. The first action that Irish viewed as aggressive and dictorial towards their culture and religion was King Henry VIII
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