A Troubled Past

Four centuries ago, English and Scottish settlers brought their Protestant church to the northern shores of historically Catholic Ireland. As immigration continued, Protestants eventually became the overwhelming majority in the island's northern province of Ulster. Today, the number of Catholics has rebounded to 38 percent of Northern Ireland's 1.6 million people.

The Act of Union in 1801 joined Ireland to Great Britain but deepened the divide between Ireland's Protestants and Catholics, and thus between North and South. After numerous setbacks, Irish nationalism revived in the early 1900s, culminating in the "Easter Rising" of 1916 when, in the midst of the "Great War," Irish rebels seized parts of Dublin. British forces swiftly overwhelmed the rebels, but the harshness of the retaliation proved to be their own undoing. In 1921, Ireland and Britain negotiated a bittersweet independence that left most of Ulster in the British Union.

Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland continued to hope for unification with the rest of Ireland. However, in 1960, they chose to emphasize human rights concerns over unification and organized marches to dramatize injustices faced by Catholics in employment, housing and education. The modern "Troubles" began in 1968 when marchers in Londonderry were baton-charged by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) -- then the virtually all-Protestant police force of Northern Ireland. Rioting in 1969 killed seven, and the British ordered troops to Northern Ireland to restore order.

The Provisional IRA, a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army, began a bombing campaign soon thereafter. To contain the terror, the British initiated "internment without trial," putting hundreds of IRA leaders under arrest. A 1972 march protesting the internment policy erupted into "Bloody Sunday" when British soldiers killed 14 protesters.

There followed more than 20 years of violence and retaliation between the IRA and its Protestant counterpart, the Ulster Defence Association. In 1993, Britain and the Republic of Ireland prepared a "Joint Declaration" stating that the future of Ireland was an issue to be resolved by the Irish people -- North and South. Both the IRA and loyalists (citizens loyal to Britain) then agreed to a cease-fire. A series of bombings by the IRA in 1996, however, once again put the peace process in jeopardy.