The document provides background and context on the emergence of conflict in Northern Ireland. It discusses the colonial legacy and how colonialism impacted Ireland through contact, penetration, fragmentation, and domination of the native Irish population. This established sectarian divisions and an unequal society in Northern Ireland. By the late 1960s, the failure to address civil rights and inequality led to the collapse of the state and eruption of the Troubles conflict.

1. Dialectics of Conquest: background and context in the emergence of conflict in N. Ireland Dr Alan Bruce Universal Learning Systems Belfast: 9 September 2010

2. Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?… Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, Everyone else going home in thought? Because the night has fallen and the barbarians haven’t come. And some of our men who have just returned from the border say There are no barbarians any longer. Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution. Waiting for the Barbarians Constantine Cavafy