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The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist period of conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war". The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times the violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. It emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former British Army soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles. It declared a ceasefire in 1994 and officially ended its campaign in 2007, although some of its members have continued to engage in violence and criminal activities. The group is classified as a terrorist organisation by the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a "workers' republic" encompassing all of Ireland. It emerged in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of the Troubles, when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) split into two factions. The other was the Provisional IRA. Each continued to call itself simply "the IRA" and rejected the other's legitimacy. Unlike the "Provisionals", the "Officials" did not think that Ireland could be unified until the Protestant majority of Northern Ireland and Catholic minority of Northern Ireland were at peace with each other. The Officials were Marxist-Leninists and worked to form a united front with other Irish communist groups, named the Irish National Liberation Front (NLF). The Officials were called the NLF by the Provisionals and were sometimes nicknamed the Red IRA by others.
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary and criminal group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and undertook an armed campaign of almost twenty-four years as one of the participants of the Troubles. Its declared goal was to defend Ulster Protestant loyalist areas, form a Protestant ethnostate in Northern Ireland through repartition and to combat Irish republicanism, particularly the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In the 1970s, uniformed UDA members openly patrolled these areas armed with batons and held large marches and rallies. Within the UDA was a group tasked with launching paramilitary attacks; it used the cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) so that the UDA would not be outlawed. The British government outlawed the "UFF" in November 1973, but the UDA itself was not proscribed as a terrorist group until August 1992.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland favouring British identity. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who led the party for the next 37 years. Now led by Edwin Poots, it has, by a margin of one, the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and it is the fifth-largest party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
Civil rights movements are a worldwide series of political movements for equality before the law, that peaked in the 1960s. In many situations they have been characterized by nonviolent protests, or have taken the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change through nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations, they have been accompanied, or followed, by civil unrest and armed rebellion. The process has been long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not, or have yet to, fully achieve their goals, although the efforts of these movements have led to improvements in the legal rights of some previously oppressed groups of people, in some places.
The Red Hand Commando (RHC) is a small secretive Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, which is closely linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Its aim was to combat Irish republicanism – particularly the Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and to maintain Northern Ireland's status as part of the United Kingdom. The Red Hand Commando carried out shootings and bombings, primarily targeting Catholic civilians. As well as allowing other loyalist groupings to claim attacks in their name, the organisation has also allegedly used the cover names "Red Branch Knights" and "Loyalist Retaliation and Defence Group". It is named after the Red Hand of Ulster, and is unique among loyalist paramilitaries for its use of an Irish language motto, Lamh Dearg Abu, meaning 'red hand to victory'.
Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs" in the United Kingdom by campaigning on issues relating to humanism, secularism, and human rights. It seeks to act as a representative body for non-religious people in the UK.
Same-sex marriage is legal in all parts of the United Kingdom. As marriage is a devolved legislative matter, different parts of the UK legalised same-sex marriage at different times; it has been recognised and performed in England and Wales since March 2014, in Scotland since December 2014, and in Northern Ireland since January 2020.
As in other countries, feminism in the United Kingdom seeks to establish political, social, and economic equality for women. The history of feminism in Britain dates to the very beginnings of feminism itself, as many of the earliest feminist writers and activists—such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Barbara Bodichon, and Lydia Becker—were British.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was an organisation that campaigned for civil rights in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967, the civil rights campaign attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to discrimination in areas such as elections, discrimination in employment, in public housing and alleged abuses of the Special Powers Act. The genesis of the organisation lay in a meeting in Maghera in August 1966 between the Wolfe Tone Societies which was attended by Cathal Goulding, then chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
People's Democracy (PD) was a political organisation that supported the campaign for civil rights for Northern Ireland's Catholic minority but stated that they could be achieved only by the establishment of a socialist republic for all of Ireland. It demanded more radical reforms of the government of Northern Ireland than the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association from which it split
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like most unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a united Ireland. Unlike other strands of unionism, loyalism has been described as an ethnic nationalism of Ulster Protestants and "a variation of British nationalism". Loyalists are often said to have a conditional loyalty to the British state so long as it defends their interests. They see themselves as loyal primarily to the Protestant British monarchy rather than to British governments and institutions, while Garret FitzGerald argued they are loyal to 'Ulster' over 'the Union'. A small minority of loyalists have called for an independent Ulster Protestant state, believing they cannot rely on British governments to support them. The term 'loyalism' is usually associated with paramilitarism.
The Troubles were a period of conflict in Northern Ireland involving republican and loyalist paramilitaries, the British security forces, and civil rights groups. They are usually dated from the late 1960s through to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. However, sporadic violence continued after this point. Those that continued violence past this point are referred to as "dissident republicans and loyalists". By 1998 the Troubles had claimed roughly 3500 lives.
The Troops Out Movement (TOM) was an Irish republican organisation formed in the United Kingdom in 1973, following actions by the British Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, including the Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy massacres by the Parachute Regiment. The organisation's goals were to secure the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland and support self-determination for the Irish people as a whole. These main aims were supplemented by smaller ones such as the demilitarisation of the Northern Irish police and the paramilitary Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) as well as opposition to discriminatory policies against Catholics in Northern Ireland. The TOM sought partnerships and other forms of cooperation with like-minded organisations in Ireland, Great Britain, and internationally.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights in Northern Ireland have traditionally been slower to advance than the rest of the United Kingdom, with the region having lagged behind England, Scotland, and Wales. Northern Ireland was the last part of the United Kingdom where same-sex sexual activity was decriminalised, the last to end a lifetime ban on blood donations by men who have sex with men, and, following the intervention of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the last to allow same-sex marriage. Compared to the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, homosexuality was decriminalised in Northern Ireland a decade earlier and civil partnerships were introduced six years earlier, but the Republic allowed same-sex marriage five years sooner.
The Northern Ireland civil rights movement dates to the early 1960s, when a number of initiatives emerged in Northern Ireland which challenged the inequality and discrimination against ethnic Irish Catholics that was perpetrated by the Ulster Protestant establishment. The Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) was founded by Conn McCluskey and his wife, Patricia. Conn was a doctor, and Patricia was a social worker who had worked in Glasgow for a period, and who had a background in housing activism. Both were involved in the Homeless Citizens League, an organisation founded after Catholic women occupied disused social housing. The HCL evolved into the CSJ, focusing on lobbying, research and publicising discrimination. The campaign for Derry University was another mid-1960s campaign.
Inez McCormack was a Northern Irish trade union leader and human rights activist. She was the first female president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, representing the UNISON union. She also successfully campaigned for the inclusion of strong equality and human rights provisions in the Good Friday Agreement, and was a signatory to the MacBride Principles for fair employment. In 2002 she was described as ‘probably the best known and most experienced human rights campaigner in this country.’
Women in Northern Ireland are women who live in or are from Northern Ireland. Among the notable women of Northern Ireland were Geraldine O'Regan and May Blood, a Catholic and a Protestant respectively. Both of them were active community leaders in Belfast, the administrative capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. Women in Northern Ireland have a variety of concerns in regards to their overall treatment in society. Some areas of concern include domestic violence, poverty, poor housing conditions, unemployment, and a wide array of larger political issues.
Bronagh Hinds is a women's rights advocate from Northern Ireland. She was a participant in the Good Friday Agreement negotiations for the Women’s Coalition and was the Deputy Chief Commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.
References
- ↑ "CAIN: Issues: Women - Valerie Morgan 'Peacemakers? Peacekeepers? - Women in Northern Ireland 1969-1995'". cain.ulster.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
- ↑ Hill, J.R (2010). A New History of Ireland Volume VII: Ireland 1921-84. Oxford University Press. p. 890. ISBN 0191615595.
- 1 2 Roulston, Carmel (1989). "Women on the Margin: The Women's Movement in Northern Ireland, 1973-1988". Science & Society. 53:2: 224.
- 1 2 3 McWilliams, Monica (1991). "Women and Political Activism in Northern Ireland, 1960-93". The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. 5.
- ↑ The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict. Oxford University Press. 2018. p. 549. ISBN 9780199300983.
- ↑ "WRDA Lecture Series – Dr. Avila Kilmurray". Northern Visions. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
- ↑ "Angela Davis and the women's movement of Northern Ireland". Morning Star. 2020-07-20. Retrieved 2021-06-07.