The Troubles refers to the 30-year period of violence in Northern Ireland between Nationalist Catholics who wanted to unite with Ireland and Unionist Protestants who wanted to remain part of the UK. This violence was carried out by paramilitary groups like the IRA and resulted in over 3,000 deaths and tens of thousands injured. Key events included Bloody Sunday, internment without trial, hunger strikes, and the Omagh bombing. The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 largely ended the violence by establishing power sharing and recognizing both communities.

1. NORTHERN IRELAND
THE TROUBLES

2. The Troubles:
• 30 years of repeated acts of intense
violence between :
Northern Ireland's Nationalist community
(principally Roman Catholic)
Unionist community (principally Protestant)
• 1968-1998

3. Unionists
• The Unionist vision is for Northern
Ireland to continue with England,
Scotland and Wales as part of the
United Kingdom
• Ideology that favours
the maintenance
• of the political and
cultural ties between
the island and Great
Britain

4. Nationalists
• political and social
movements inspired
by a love for Irish
culture, language and
history
• Today: United Ireland
• “Green Flag”main symbol of Irish
Nationalist on the 19th and early 20th
century

5. Conflict
• Status of Northern Ireland within the
United Kingdom
• Domination and discrimination of
Nationalist by Unionist

6. Political map of Ireland.

8. • Republic of Ireland gained sovereignty in
1922, relations between North and South
improved.
• Irish Republican Army (IRA) continued the
struggle to end partition of Ireland.
• 1966-1969 rioting and street fighting
Protestants and Catholics occurred in
Londonderry.
• Religious communities became hostile
armed camps.
• British troops were brought in to separate
them.

9. • They became target to the Catholics and
IRA.
• IRA´s goal: to eject the British and unify
Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic to
the South.
• Protestants remained loyal to the UK.
• Direct rule from London and the presence
of British troops failed to stop the violence.

10. 1968, 5 October
• A civil rights march in Derry was banned by
the Northern Ireland government, who let an
Apprentice Boys* march take place instead.
When civil rights activists defied the ban,
they were attacked by the RUC (Royal Ulster
Constabulary -was the name of the police
force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001) ,
leading to three days of rioting.
*Protestant fraternal society with a worldwide
membership, founded in 1814. They are based
in the city of Derry, Northern Ireland

11. The "Civil Rights mural" in Derry

12. 1970–1979
• Following an Orange Order *parade,
intense riots erupted on the Springfield
Road in Belfast. Violence lasted for three
days, and the British Army used CS gas
for the first time in large quantities.
* Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in
Northern Ireland and Scotland

13. • A mural in Derry, Northern Ireland of a young boy in a gas mask
holding a petrol bomb during the Battle of the Bogside, August 1969

14. 1970
• the Social Democratic and Labour Party
(SDLP) was formed.
1971
• Gunner Robert Curtis became the first
British Soldier to die in the Troubles when
he was shot by the IRA
• During street disturbances, British soldiers
shot dead two Catholic civilians in Free
Derry. As a result, riots erupted in the city

15. • 1972
• Bloody Sunday - 27 civilians were shot, of
whom 14 were killed by the British Army
during a civil rights march in Derry.
• "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" is a Paul and Linda
McCartney song written in response to the events of
Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland on 30 January 1972.
The song was released on 25 February 1972
• banned by the BBC, Radio Luxembourg and the
Independent Television Authority

16. • A bomb explodes without warning in the Abercorn
Restaurant on Castle Lane in Belfast. Two are killed
and 130 injured.
• The IRA explode twenty-four bombs in towns and
cities across Northern Ireland. There was also
fourteen shootouts between the IRA and security
forces
• Bloody Friday - within the space of seventy-five
minutes, the PIRA exploded twenty-two bombs in
Belfast. Six civilians, two British Army soldiers and
one UDA member were killed, while 130 were
injured.

17. 1973
• 28 june-Northern Ireland Assembly elections
took place.
1974
• 4 February M62 coach bombing - twelve people
were killed when a PIRA bomb exploded on a
bus as it was travelling along the M62
motorway in West Yorkshire, England. It was
carrying British Army soldiers and some of their
family members. Nine soldiers and three
civilians were killed.
• The Troubles claimed its 1000th victim

18. 1975
• The PIRA agreed on a ceasefire with the British
government and the Northern Ireland Office.
1976
• Christopher Ewart Biggs, the British Ambassador
to Ireland, and his secretary Judith Cook, were
assassinated by a bomb planted in Mr. Biggs’
car in Dublin.
• 1977
11 December Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams
received the Nobel Peace Prize.

19. • Mairead Corrigan
• Betty Williams

20. 1978
• La Mon restaurant bombing - eleven civilians
and an RUC officer were killed and thirty
wounded by a PIRA (Provisional Irish
Republican Army ) incendiary bomb at the La
Mon Restaurant near Belfast
1979
• The PIRA assassinated Richard Sykes, the
British ambassador to the Netherlands, in Den
Haag. The group also exploded twenty-four
bombs in various locations across Northern
Ireland
• During a visit, Pope John Paul II appealed for an
end to the violence in Northern Ireland

21. 1980-1989
• 1980: Dunmurry train explosion
1981: Norman and his son's assassination
1982: The PIRA explodes bombs in Belfast
1983: New Ireland Forum
1984: Brighton Hotel bombing
1985: Anglo- Irish Agreement
1986: Northern Ireland Assembly dissolved.
1987: Remembrance Day bombing.
1988: SLDP John Hume and Gery Adams'
meeting: beginning of Peace Process.
1989: Republican solicitor Pat Tinucane's
assassination

22. 1990-1999
• Irish National Liberation Army declare a
ceasefire. End of trouble.
2000 Present: The Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
2001: BBC bombing
2007: Northern Ireland Assembly elections
2008: IRA continues bombing
2009: INLA formally adopts peaceful
political means to its aims.
2010: UDA and INLA announced
dicommisation of weapons.