The Troubles

编者语：北爱尔兰（Northern Ireland），素有绿王国之称，属英国政府管辖，首府贝尔法斯特(Belfast)。这里自然风光优美，空气清新，广袤的绿色草原和数不清的青山绿水勾勒出北爱尔兰独有的以“绿色”为主线的自然景观。沿着北爱尔兰的海岸线往北，繁忙的海港与有着数百年历史的古堡相交辉映，现代的生机与历史的底蕴在这里和谐并存。仿佛它一直就是如此的平静和平和。然而，来自爱尔兰的McEleney老师却告诉我们，北爱尔兰也曾经经历过战火纷飞的年代。北爱问题的起源，经过以及最终问题的解决是什么样的呢？让我们跟随McEleney老师一起去感受一下吧。

As you all know by now, I am from Ireland. I am assuming that a lot of you have heard of it and even and vaguely know where it is. For those who do not, it is an island in Europe,next to Great Britain and the North Atlantic Ocean. The country is divided into two parts, Northern Ireland (pop. 1.8 million), which is part of the UK and the Republic of Ireland (pop. 4.6 million) which is a sovereign state. It is funny to me that the population of both together is less than half the population of Chengdu. For the first 18 years of my life I grew up in Northern Ireland, in a town called Derry. Like the students in our A-Level Centre, I wanted to leave my hometown and my country to attend university. I wanted to go somewhere bigger and better. I chose Manchester in England, UK. It was a very exciting time; I loved the city, the music scene (i.e Oasis, The Stone Roses) and the people. I liked Manchester so much I chose to live there for seven years.
When I moved to England my parents also decided to move to a new home in the countryside. They moved to a place called Donegalin the Republic of Ireland which is only about 20 kilometres away from Derry. So, even now,my mother travels, every day, to a different country with a different currency, to visit my grandmother. It is a fifteen minute drive by car. There are no border stops with soldiers and ID checks, like there were when I was a child. You simply keep driving and suddenly you are in another country. You are probably wondering, why am I telling you this?
Ireland has always had a very complicated and turbulent history with its powerful neighbour, Great Britain. But in the past 50 years Northern Ireland experienced a particularly violent conflict.I experienced it, first hand, and I have many family members and friends who were badly affected. This is one of the reasons why some people decided to leave, given the opportunity. This time in Northern Ireland is commonly known by its citizens as “The Troubles”. It was afierce conflict that spilled over at various times into the Republic of Ireland, mainland UK and mainland Europe. More than 3,500 people were killed.
The Troubles beganin the late 1960s and are deemed by many to have ended with the "Good Friday" Agreement of 1998, although there has been sporadic violence since then. The conflict was primarily a political one, but it also had an ethnic dimension. A key issue was the constitutional status of NorthernIreland.Unionists/loyalists, who are mostly Protestants, generally want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists/republicans, who are mostly Catholics, generally want it to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland. I was a member of the Catholic community, as are all my family who still live there, although I have friends on both sides. Another key issue was the relationship between my community and the Protestant community. The conflict began amid a campaign to end discrimination against the Catholic minority by the Protestant dominated government and police force. There were many other grievances on both sides that I will not spend too much time describing in this article but all the information is available online.
The main participants in the Troubles were republican paramilitaries (such as the Provisional IRA), loyalist paramilitaries (such as the UVF and UDA), the British state security forces (the British Army and the RUC, Northern Ireland's police force), and political activists and politicians.
I was born in 1983 and from an early age can remember regular violence on the streets and many other problems created by the two divided communities. The majority of people from both sides wanted the fighting to end and to find an answer through political means. Despite the will of the people, bloodshed continued and many terrible events occurred until the beginning of the ‘peace process’ when I was 14 years old. This process included the declaration of ceasefires by most paramilitary organisations, the complete removal of the IRA's weapons, the reform of the police, and the corresponding withdrawal of the British Army from the streets and sensitive border areas between different communities, as agreed by the signatories to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The agreement reiterated the long-held British position, which successive Irish governments have not fully acknowledged, that Northern Ireland would remain within the United Kingdom, unless a majority of Northern Irish vote otherwise.
The British government recognised for the first time the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. The latter statement was of key importance to win the support for ‘the agreement’ from members of my side of the community. It also established a devolved power-sharing government within Northern Ireland, wherein the government must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties.
Although the number of active participants was relatively small, the Troubles touched the lives of many in Northern Ireland on a daily basis. As I noted earlier, some of those people were family and friends of mine both Catholic and Protestant. The majority of my family still live in Derry, Northern Ireland; I visit as often as possible and still regard it as home. The city has changed a lot since I left in 2003. One of the highlights in recent years was it being awarded the ‘UK City of Culture’ in 2013. It was a year of celebration, peace and reconciliation. Unfortunately, I was not there to share the experience for very long as I was living and teaching in Seoul, South Korea. But almost every day, I watched the events online on websites such as BBC News and I felt a huge sense of pride and joy to see happiness in a place where itwas long overdue.