This paper examines the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1992, analyzing the roots of violence between the Protestant Unionist majority and the Catholic nationalist minority. It discusses how discriminatory governance by the Unionist-dominated provincial government fueled unrest, prompting British military intervention and Irish Republican Army insurgency. The paper then evaluates British counter-insurgency (COIN) operations, highlighting the tension between operational necessity and civil liberties protections. Finally, it critiques the British government's response as strategically inconsistent — driven more by a desire to withdraw than by a coherent political or military plan — a pattern scholars have characterized as "schizophrenic."
This study guide is drawn from PaperDue's library of 130,000+ paper examples across 47 subjects.
From 1968 to 1992, Northern Ireland was plagued by sectarian violence between the Protestant majority, who favored their union with Britain, and the Catholic minority, who did not. As a province of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland had, prior to the 1968 "Troubles," an independent government dominated by Protestant Unionists. However, their insistence on treating the Catholic minority as second-class citizens, and the resulting outbreak of violence in 1968, forced the British to flood the province with troops in order to keep the warring parties apart. This sparked a full-scale insurrection on the part of the nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA), which in turn precipitated a policy of counter-intelligence operations by the British. These operations raised difficult questions about how to reconcile domestic law with the need to conduct counter-insurgency activities. Meanwhile, while British intelligence may have been able to predict the outbreak of the Troubles, British politicians did not — and their response to the escalating violence was a series of blunders and policy changes that many have described as "schizophrenic."
As a self-governed province of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland's government was dominated by the Protestant majority, who were pro-Union with Britain and used state power to discriminate against the native Catholic Irish. This situation developed because, as one scholar notes, "a Unionist government dominated the State and Protestant/Unionist interests de facto became the State's" (Dingley 2009, Chapter 2). Not only were the official police forces stridently Unionist, but there were also a number of Unionist paramilitary organizations that held legal standing and were instrumental in instigating violence against Catholics. Because the conflict took place within the United Kingdom and was primarily a sectarian one — between two religious groups with divergent political ideals — the British had no choice but to intervene with troops and attempt to separate the warring parties until a political settlement could be reached.
The British Army used counter-insurgency (COIN) operations in Northern Ireland in an attempt to gain support from the Catholic minority, to protect those targeted by the IRA, and to support government policy. However, in order to accomplish these goals, operations often conflicted with the laws in place to protect citizens from unlawful intrusions upon their rights. COIN operations frequently involved such measures as a "shoot to kill policy, the over-zealous use of informers… the oppressive treatment of detainees… and the repression of anti-state views…" (Dickson 2012, p. 292). In response to the need for such measures, the Unionist-dominated Northern Irish government passed a number of "emergency" provisions in the period following the start of the Troubles, granting the British military unprecedented legal authority to carry out such operations (Morgan 2009, p. 160).
"British policy lacked coherent goals, called schizophrenic"
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.