"The troubles" - What happened in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1990

"The troubles" - What happened in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1990

"The troubles", a period of rebellions that went on from 1968 to 1990, took place in a region called Ulster, which, now a days, corresponds to Northern Ireland. In this region, most of the people are protestant and, in that time, there were in Ulster some laws that discriminated catholic people, who were the minority. The conflicts, which were the consequence of the separation between Eire and Northern Ireland,  started in 1968, when a group of catholics marched throw Londonderry to get the same rights of protestants. This march were repressed in a violent way by protestant. The situation began to go worse with a second march of catholics, called "the march of the civil rights", in 1969, which was repressed violently, too. The situation was bad also because of protestant demonstration conducted in catholic areas. Because of all these things, catholics got even more angry, and, from that moment, started a series of troubles and acts of terrorism which were very bloody and had their centre in Belfast and Londonderry. The protestant, to oppose the catholic actions, asked for the intervention of a special force called "special B", which were composed by protestant extremists. With this intervention, the tension became higher, and a traffic of weapons started between catholics. This traffic was forbidden in 1970 from the first minister of Eire, and also I.R.A. had to intervene. With the elections for the Constituent assembly in Ulster (1975), the situation went even worse; in fact, the intransigent protestant won the elections, and they refused to get accommodations with catholics. Because of this, the catholics made other troubles, more violent than the firsts, and they got the breaking up of the Constituent (1976). In that year, the government of Eire approved a law against terrorism, because of all that acts of terrorism that caused the death of 296 people. With this law and the difficultly economic situation, the government became unpopular and the people asked for and got new elections. From that time there was at least a consultation a year in Eire, till a coalition between the Fine Gael (united Irish) and the Labour Party got the executive power (1982). The first minister, Garret FitzGerald, promoted an approach to Great Britain, which was translated with the Hillsborough's Treaty. This treaty expected the commitment of Eire and great Britain to get reunification of Ireland. The problem was that the treaty was interpreted only in an antiterrorism way, so the coalition was defeated and a new Party, called Fianna Fàil, was elected in 1987. Between 1989 and 1990, thanks to the collaboration between Eire and Great Britain, people got a standing consultative Body and the recognition of Irish government as an interlocutor, also by protestant unionists. But, in spite of that, terrorist attacks went on till 1994, when I.R.A. promulgated the stop of all military actions. The armed fights started again, also after this promulgation; they were caused by the fact that Great Britain's government didn't want to start the negotiations till Irish people weren't disarmed. The negotiations to get peace started again in 1997, when Tony Blair won the political elections in Great Britain. Thanks to these negotiations, I.R.A. promulgated the stop of the fire and Sinn Fein (the political side of I.R.A.) was allowed to take part to the negotiations' table.