英美相关文化知识概论 纯正英语版 Northern-Ireland.pptVIP

Faced with conflicting demands the British government chose a compromise and organized a partition of Ireland. About a third of the Northern Irish population was Roman Catholic, many of whom resented the North’s separation from the South and identical with the nationalist cause. But the Protestants, being the majority, would like to remain a part of the UK. In 1921, the Agreement of Britain and Ireland was reached. According to that, the southern 26 counties would form an independent “free state”, while the 6 northeastern counties would remain a part of the UK. This brought to an end of 700 years of British rule in southern Ireland. Forming an independent “free state” 分割，划分 Unlike the other nations in the UK, Northern Ireland was given its own Parliament to deal with Northern Irish internal affairs. To worsen the situation, the Protestants, being the majority, controlled the local democratically-elected parliament, and used the power to support their own economic and social dominance in the province. Catholics found it harder to get jobs, or to benefit from social programs such as public housing. Schools and sporting events were segregated. Understandably, resentment grew, and the armed conflict known as the “troubles” developed. The Troubles Conflicts between the Protestants and the Catholics With appearance of television in the early 1970s, people in the North were able to witness the tactics of the new pacifist(和平主义者) civil-rights movement in America, as they organized public marches, sit-ins and so on. Those Roman Catholics felt that they had been treated in much the same way as American blacks, and they also campaigned for civil rights by means of marches, speeches and sit-ins in the same way. Groups of Protestants began to organize counter-demonstrations (反游行), and rioting(暴乱) broke out. Protestant mobs attacked Catholic areas. There are many conflicts between the Protestants and the Catholics.