It sounds very uneducated but if you are like me, you didn't know that Ireland was split into two halves until you arrived here. I didn't know that it was an issue like North and South Korea.
If you travel to Dublin or Belfast you will quickly see how much that this is still very prevalent and ongoing issue.
The history is where it all becomes quite tricky, you can see more in depth details here. The very basics are Protestants were put in power over the Catholics and the Catholics started to fight for independence. Then the six counties that were predominately Protestant formed Northern Ireland and the 26 predominately Catholic counties formed The Republic of Ireland.
There strong links between Ireland and the United States, during the potato famine, in 1845 nearly 6 million Irish immigrated to the States. Irish-Americans are thought to have provided weaponry and money to support the IRA during the troubles and it is believed that they continue to support the IRA by the same means.
There is still violence and the United States was part of the Good Friday Agreement which was signed in 1998 which was a ceasefire between British and Irish Governments.
If you speak with some British people, this is a topic that I would tread lightly with and be wary because some may have been affected by one of the ongoing bombings or hold very strong views about the situation in Ireland and Irish-American support/involvement.
No comments:
Post a Comment