After the spiritual powers, there is nothing in the world more unconquerable than the spirit of nationality. The spirit of nationality in Ireland will persist even though the mightiest of material powers be its neighbour. George William Russell
There had been a long tradition of Scots’ migration to Ulster, but these were Presbyterians. Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland 3/5: The Age of Revolution, BBC 2011
The Ulster Presbyterians joined the American War of Independence. ibid.
The Orange Order – the voice of Protestant fear. ibid.
To this very day men are willing to kill to try to break the union. Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland 4/5: The Age of Union
In Ulster there were more than a million Protestants. ibid.
Rioting had spread across Belfast. ibid.
The Act of Union had given Catholics economic power but their political destiny remained in the hands of London. Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland 5/5: Age of Nations
Fears grew that Britain would introduce conscription in Ireland. ibid.
[Patrick] Pearse stepped outside and read from a proclamation signed by himself and the six other leaders: he declared an Irish republic. ibid.
Public anger deepened following mass arrests and the imposition of martial law. ibid.
The volunteers evolved into the Irish Republican Army. ibid.
Collins would find himself directing a guerrilla war. The IRA campaign which began in 1919 was met with fierce reprisals against civilians by security forces like the Black & Tans. ibid.
In October 1921 a Sinn Fein delegation led by Michael Collins arrived in London to discuss a political settlement. ibid.
The slide to civil war had begun. ibid.
Michael Collins was assassinated in County Cork. ibid.
In the Protestant-ruled six counties of Ulster electoral boundaries had been drawn to ensure majorities for unionists in most areas. ibid.
A place of discrimination and exclusion. ibid.
Physical and sexual abuse on a large scale was part of the secret history of the new state. ibid.
Ireland remained neutral ... Germans bailing out over the South were interned. ibid.
Television challenged the voice of both priest and politician. Women joined the workforce in growing numbers and challenged discriminatory laws. ibid.
Republican and loyalist paramilitaries, policemen and soldiers, fought over the old ground. ibid.
Bloody Sunday: January 30th 1972. ibid.
Hunger strikes begin in the Maze Prison October 27th 1980. ibid.
Inequality between rich and poor was still amongst the worst of western Europe. ibid.
The full scale of clerical child abuse was revealed. ibid.
In 2008 a financial catastrophe unleashed public anger. ibid.
IRA disarmament September 26th 2005. ibid.
For over thirty years the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms. Gerry Adams
For five years the British government has had its forces waging a campaign of terror not just on the IRA but on the people of Ireland. David O’Connell, televised interview 17th November 1974
The Anglo-Irish might consider themselves Irish ... but of course they were nothing of the sort. They were as English as the people who lived across the sea. Their only problem was that they didn’t realise it. Maeve Binchy, Circle of Friends, 1990
We could have celebrity gladiators. We could have the RUC fighting the IRA in spangly suits and cotton buds. Patrick Kielty, comedian on stage
Since the present Irish war begin in 1968 several hundred major programmes on Ireland have been banned, censored, doctored and delayed ... Even during the recent ceasefire, the British government’s propaganda model was strictly adhered to. The underlying issues such as poverty and the RUC’s policing methods were ignored. John Pilger, lecture The Hidden Power of the Media
Give Ireland Back to the Irish. Wings with Paul McCartney
Pat: He was an Anglo-Irishman.
Meg: In the blessed name of God what’s that?
Pat: A protestant with a horse. Brendan Behan, 1923-1964, Hostage, 1958
We are a protestant parliament for protestant people. Lord Craigavon, cited Bishop Daniel Mageean
A disorderly set of people whom no king can govern and no God can please. Boyle Roche
My heart besieged in anger, my mind a gap of danger,
I walked among their old haunts, the home ground where they bled;
And in the dirt lay justice like an acorn in the winter
Till its oak would sprout in Derry where the thirteen men lay dead. Seamus Heaney, re Bloody Sunday, Derry 30th January 1972
Sunday Bloody Sunday. U2
We will not rest until justice is done. Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey
Against all her political instincts on the morning of November 15th 1985 Margaret Thatcher flew in to Hillsborough Castle to sign an agreement she’d been told would help bring an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Thatcher and the IRA: Dealing with Terror, BBC 2014
Almost from the moment of Ian Gow’s resignation, Margaret Thatcher regretted the agreement; so why had she signed it in the first place? ibid.
... And how we used to expect, at a later date,
When the wind blew from the west, the noise of shooting
Starting in the evening at eight
In Belfast in the York Street district;
And the voodoo of the Orange bands
Drawing an iron net through darkest Ulster,
Flailing the limbo lands –
The linen mills, the long wet grass, the ragged hawthorn ... Louis MacNeice, from Autumn Journal
If I were asked the question, All that has happened in the last thirty years since 1969, has it been worth it? I would have to say, No. It hasn’t ... It’s very hard to justify it ... I think people are more realistic now. Tony Meade
It is pure tribalism, the cause of troubles all over the world. Gerry Fitt, The Times 5th August 1994
The mother of all treachery. Ian Paisley, initial assessment of Good Friday agreement
We are not here to negotiate with them, but to confront them. David Trimble, Guardian 18th September 1997
The fundamental Act of Union is there, intact. David Trimble, Daily Telegraph 11th April 1998
Once we are agreed our only weapons will be our words, then there is nothing that cannot be said, there is nothing that cannot be achieved. David Trimble, 4th September 1998
This is the story of a secret British army unit set up to deal with enemies of the state on the streets of the United Kingdom. Britain’s Secret Terror Force, BBC 2013
The Unit carried out round the clock patrols of West Belfast. ibid.
The worst gang of serial killers in British history. A gang that gruesomely lived up to their name: the Shankill Butchers. Shankhill Butchers
How did the Shankill Butchers get away with it for so long? ibid.
1972 saw the highest death toll of the Troubles in one year: nearly 500 people were killed. In January Bloody Sunday was seared into the memory. Horror followed upon horror. ibid.
Power struggles between the UDA and the UVF were rampant. ibid.
In June 1973 [Lenny] Murphy was acquitted of the Pavis murder ... He set up his own unit ... He was determined to unleash a level of sectarian savagery never before seen in Northern Ireland. ibid.
The killers were dubbed the Shankill Butchers. ibid.
Victim number five was another Catholic randomly targeted at night within a square mile of Millfield. ibid.
With nineteen murders between them they were at the time the most prolific serial killers in British history. ibid.
In November 1982 murder caught up with Lenny Murphy: he was shot in Glencairn. ibid.