Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The island of Ireland was once the longest-held colony of Great Britain. Unlike its Celtic
cousins, Scotland and Wales, Ireland has always been distant from London—a distance
due more to its Catholicism than the Irish Sea.
Four hundred years ago, Protestant settlers from England and Scotland were strategic-
ally “planted” in Catholic Ireland to help assimilate the island into the British economy.
These settlers established their own cultural toehold on the island, while the Catholic Irish
held strong to their Gaelic culture.
Over the centuries, British rule hasn't been easy. By the beginning of the 20th century,
the sparse Protestant population could no longer control the entire island. When Ireland
won its independence in 1921 (after a bloody guerrilla war against British rule), 26 of the
island's 32 counties became the Irish Free State, ruled from Dublin with dominion status
in the British Commonwealth—similar to Canada's level of sovereignty. In 1949, these 26
counties left the Commonwealth and became the Republic of Ireland, severing all political
ties with Britain. Meanwhile, the six remaining northeastern counties—the only ones with
a Protestant majority—chose not to join the Irish Free State, and remained part of the UK.
But embedded within these six counties—now joined as the political entity called
Northern Ireland—was a large, disaffected Catholic minority who felt they'd been sold
down the river by the drawing of the new international border. Their political opponents
were the “Unionists”—Protestants eager to defend the union with Britain, who were
primarily led by two groups: the long-established Orange Order, and the military muscle
