THE IRISH QUESTION I
During WWI England had to face different problems inside and outside its boundaries:
outside was WWI; inside there were Ireland and India which asked for independence from the old
country (=la vecchia madrepatria,
cioè l'Inghilterra).
India obtained independence in 1947 and it was split into 2
different states: India and Pakistan. Irish
way to independence was longer than Indian.
The problems between Ireland and England are deeply-rooted/have
their origins both in history and in
religion.
In history
because Ireland was
colonised by England
in the XIII century. In religion because British
colonisation brought a new religion
in Ireland.
Irish people had Celtic origins. Celtics were known as a Catholic people, whereas English people were Protestants.
English people introduced feudalism
in Ireland
and obliged Irish people to work the land as serfs. Only a very little part of
the crop remained to Irish people who had to live on it, thus living in very
poor conditions.
Through the following centuries English Protestants tried to subdue Irish
Catholic people. In the XVI century, two
acts were passed by English Parliament: the first stated that Irish Parliament
could only be summoned under the consent/authorization of the English king;
the second one,
stated that every act approved by the English
Parliament should be applied to Ireland
as well.
In the XVII century, English
Protestants settled in the North-East of Ireland,
in the region called Ulster,
which included 6 counties (=contee).
In 1689, James II (a Catholic king of the Stuart dynasty) offered his help
to Irish Catholics landing an army in Ireland. However, English
Protestants could count on the help of William
of Orange (Hannover
dynasty) and won the Battle of the Boyne
(1690). From now on, Irish Protestants will be called Orangemen.
Britain feared Irish economic competition, thus it prohibited
Ireland
to produce goods and raw materials. In the meantime, Irish people continued asking for
independence.
In 1801,
the Act of Union,
established that Ireland
was part of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland.
This also meant that Anglican Church became the Irish official Church
and that Catholics
were not allowed to sit in Parliament, even though 88% of the
population was Catholic.
In 1829, England
feared an Irish Civil War, so it passed the Catholic Emancipation Act which gave Catholics the right to vote.
As feudalism was introduced,
English became rich landowners, whereas Irish people lived on potatoes. In 1845-6 the failure of the potato crop
(=raccolto) brought to famine (=carestia). Irish people blamed
(=accusare) the English for the disaster, and asked for Home
Rule (=self-government).
In 1905, an Home Rule
Party (=un partito a favore dell'autogoverno) was
founded by Charles Stuart Parnell.
The party took the name of Sinn Feinn, a Celtic expression that means
"ourselves
alone
Tension continued throughout the
years and in 1914, Dublin
government was given full control except over foreign and constitutional
matters. Anyway, with the outbreak of WWI, England postponed the resolution of
the problem and it was agreed that in the meantime hostilities would be
suspended . BUT . in April 1916 in Dublin there was an uprising led by a group
of extreme nationalists of Sinn Feinn. The uprising
was repressed by the British army: 450 people died and over 3,000 were wounded
(=feriti). The rebels were executed. This
uprising remained to the history with the name of Easter Rising. It is still
strongly celebrated by the Catholic Nationalist Community.
At the end of WWI, the question
rose again. A key-ure (=ura chiave)
was that of the leader of the Sinn Feinn: Eamon de Valera.
In this period, nationalists organized their own army called I.R.A. - Irish Republican Army. It mostly used guerrilla
tactics. The conflict between English and Irish people became bitter and more violent
In 1921, Britain proposed a treaty (=trattato
/ tregua) to the rebels. It consisted in dividing Ireland into two parts:
the Ulster
(6 counties). It was given limited Home
Rule, a separate Parliament in Belfast but it remained tied to Britain.
It had a mostly Protestant population
The Irish
Free State. It governed
itself but stayed under British rule.
The treaty was not accepted by
the rebels and in 1922-3 civil war
outbreak. IRA surrendered their arms but not their intentions.
In 1937 the
Irish Free State was renamed EIRE, the Gaelic
name for Ireland.
In 1949,
the final link with Britain
was broken and Ireland became a REPUBLIC.
