Horrific Religious Bigotry In Action

The people of Northern Ireland have endured a bloody and brutal conflict for centuries caused by religious, cultural and political prejudices. The Troubles, as the conflict is known in Ireland, has heightened the division between two different peoples, Catholics and Protestants. So, how is compromise found with the blood of over 3500 dead staining the streets and hearts of Northern Ireland? Where is peace in a community so divided? Is there a solution in a land where bigotry and hate dominate the political landscape? The heartbreaking complexity of the Northern Irish conflict is summed up in this account by Seamus Heaney in a lecture when he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995:

“One of the most harrowing moments in the whole history of the harrowing of the heart in Northern Ireland came when a minibus full of workers being driven home one January evening in 1976 was held up by armed and masked men and the occupants of the van ordered at gunpoint to line up at the side of the road. Then one of the masked executioners said to them, “Any Catholics among you, step out here”. As it happened, this particular group, with one exception, were all Protestants, so the presumption must have been that the masked men were Protestant paramilitaries about to carry out a tit-for-tat sectarian killing of the Catholic as the odd man out, the one who would have been presumed to be in sympathy with the IRA and all its actions. It was a terrible moment for him, caught between dread and witness, but he did make a motion to step forward. Then, the story goes, in that split second of decision, and in the relative cover of the winter evening darkness, he felt the hand of the Protestant worker next to him take his hand and squeeze it in a signal that said no, don’t move, we’ll not betray you, nobody need know what faith or party you belong to. All in vain, however, for the man stepped out of the line; but instead of finding a gun at his temple, he was thrown backward and away as the gunmen opened fire on those remaining in the line, for these were not Protestant terrorists, but members, presumably, of the Provisional IRA.”

The historical context of the conflict in Northern Ireland must be understood to comprehend the scope of the tragedies and appreciate the hard won compromises of recent years. After the bloody military conquest of a Catholic Ireland by the Protestant British in the 1600′s, order needed to be established in the region. The British monarchy’s solution, The Plantation of Ulster, gave much of the most fertile farm land in the Northeast region of Ireland to Scottish and English Protestant plantation owners, and other British settlers, thus driving native Irish Catholics from their homes. Injustice, combined with close proximity, differing cultures, ideologies, political allegiances, and religious beliefs created fierce hostilities. Alienated Catholics reacted with spurts of violence against the new migrating Protestants, and these conflicts would continue, unresolved, into the 1900′s.

The full article can be found by clicking here: