Part II, 5 Northern Ireland 1968–1998

From the late 1960s, Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, experienced violent sectarian conflict between two rival communities, one largely Protestant and claiming loyalty to the British Crown, the other largely Roman Catholic and seeking a united republican Ireland. There had been outbreaks of violence before this, of course. Indeed, the history of sectarian motivated violence in the region has a history going back to the early seventeenth century, shortly after the Scottish king James VI assumed the crown of England as James I and both Scottish and...