Northern IrelandThings to Know

It’s been suggested that Hadrian’s Wall, the northernmost border of the Roman Empire, was built to protect the Romans from the northern inhabitants. Northern Britain, including the early Scots, were hard to contain, and the Caledonian tribes remained fiercely resistant. The Roman Empire never conquered Hibernia, the ancient name for the island of Ireland, and there is some speculation as to whether any serious Roman effort to that end ever stood on Irish soil. Christianity however, brought by the Romans, did spread across the island, eventually wiping out the former druid tradition of high-priests. And there has been evidence of Roman fashion, coins and jewelry found in Ireland that show some trade and commercial interaction occurred. In the vacuum left by the Romans, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes took over for three hundred years. For centuries after that there were many more invasions and attempts at control there, but eventually power in Ireland was restricted to Dublin, as the resistance forces were found to be effective. The Nine Years’ War saw an alliance of Gael chieftains lose lands to the Crown. The following period saw Irish Catholics fighting British Protestants seeking self-governance independence and further blocks against Catholic discrimination. Underground militant groups organized over many years and the period of the next several centuries are marked with violence and tension. Northern Ireland was created in 1921. Those loyal to the Crown were unionists, and wanted to remain a part of the UK. These people were largely descendants of colonists from Britain in Northern Ireland, while the south of Ireland sought total independence. Those in Northern Ireland today generally consider themselves British, and those in the Republic of Ireland consider themselves Irish. During the Troubles (1920-22) the Irish Republican Army fought the British forces and Protestants and Catholics fought each other savagely. The sentiments from this era lasted in spats over the next few decades and in the 1960s the Troubles came back and stayed for 30 years. 1998 marked the end of this time of unrest, though there have been sporadic incidents since then. Today, both unionist and nationalist communities share power.