The conflict in Northern Ireland is in many ways a paradox. The region has adequate resources and, although it has been a rather marginal area of the British Isles, is nonetheless quite affluent compared to most of the rest of the world. The people are invariably described as friendly and hospitable and to outsiders they seem to form a homogeneous community. The United Kingdom, of which Northern Ireland is a part, is a functioning democracy where it might be argued there is no need for violence in order to bring about political change. What kind of problem can make people with this background engage in a thirty-year violent struggle against their neighbors and produce some of the most effective militant groups of modern times? Northern Ireland challenges the assumption that conflicts only occur in underdeveloped countries where tribal loyalties are more important than citizenship, where there is a limited democratic tradition and where there are massive problems of poverty and inequality. It is rooted in the struggle of one part of the community for an independent and unified Ireland and hostility to that struggle from the other part of the community wanting to remain within the United Kingdom.The conflict is complex because of the number of actors involved, both inside and outside Northern Ireland. The states most directly affected are the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Ireland began to come under English influence and control from the twelfth century when Anglo-Norman knights were invited to assist Irish chieftains in a local conflict. Hadrian IV, the only English Pope, then issued the papal bull Lauda Abiliter in 1155-56 allowing Henry II to conquer Ireland. Eventually the country became an integrated part of the United Kingdom. Since then there has always been some level of resistance to English and later British involvement in Ireland. In the early years of the twentieth century the demands for independence became ov...
