By what they're fighting about I don't mean repeating the article about fluting past the hall I mean the "deep down" historical reasons.

Nationalists are people who believe the entire island of Ireland should be united as one country. Loyalists believe England has rights to the Northern Ireland part of Ireland (since they have a history of "ownership" and occupation). Nationalists are Catholic, Loyalists are Protestant which both helps to define things AND complicate things.

Actually, for many centuries England was an occupying force in the entirety of Ireland, not just Northern Ireland. But the Irish managed to cause enough ruckus over the years that the English have retreated to one of the best ports... er, to their own small corner which they still claim to be "theirs".

In the story in the OP, the Loyalists (pro-England) are provocatively marching past the Catholic (pro-united Ireland or Nationalist) church and playing antagonistic music, presumably while the Sunday service is going on.

Since there is a history of "troubles" about this sort of thing, there are laws about that sort of shit-stirring now.

Vestiges of colonialism in a post-modern world.

Time for my third drink.... (rider sadly trundles off )

I grew up in an industrial town in England that had a large Irish community. Many members of my very large family had Irish spouses, some from Northern Ireland and some from the South. I was not really aware of the hatred between the two religions in Ireland and left England in the sixties before the trouble spilled over again. I remember sitting in pubs with large Irish communities learning the words of the IRA fighting songs, I thought they were just songs about times long past.

I think a lot of blame has to go to the British Government for allowing things to get so bad. The catholic population in Northern were subject to discrimination and police brutality and we looked the other way. When they finally organized and marched in 1969, the British troops should have been there to defend them. If they had gone in at the beginning and brought about the necessary reforms that came years later, so much bloodshed could have been avoided.

It's just a big thanks to both of you.

When the Army first entered the bogside in Derry and the other Nationalist areas, they were welcomed by the Catholic population. They were cheered and took tea in Catholic homes. Things changed with the change in the British Government. James Callahgan was the Labour Home Secretary from 11/67 until June of 1970. Callaghan was generally seen at sympathetic or at least, impartial to the sides in the conflict. Things changed on 20 June of 1970, when the Conservatives took control of the Government and installed Reginald Maulding as the Home Secretary.

On 3 July 1970, Maulding directed the Army to curfew off the Falls Road, (the major Catholic area in Belfast) ostensibly to search for illegal weapons, after the IRA responded to a UVF attack on St. Matthew's Catholic Church. The Nationalist community referred to this as the "Rape of the Falls". Maulding and the Army further complicated this issue, by using young Scottish Protestant soldiers. While searching the homes, they trashed holy pictures and offered other offense to the Catholic home owners. After the population had been subdued they took two Unionist MP's on a tour of the area inside a Saracen armored vehicle.

To the Nationalist population, that is when the Army became a wing of the Loyalist and Protestant establishment, and not the even handed arbiter they had been. This was followed two years later, by Bloody Sunday...That became the touchstone for the next twenty plus years of violence..

sorry to be so wordy, but this is an issue near and dear to my heart, and to my family..Slainte!

2 weeks ago on Sunday, the loyalist marching band broke the ruling that they could not play music while going past St. Patrick's Church. Some bricks and bottles were thrown, and 2 police were injured.

This Sunday, a republican band marched, and didn't have restrictions placed on it. Loyalists started throwing missiles (including fireworks and petrol bombs), and 47 police were injured.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19465842

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19489545

In my defense, I really was pretty much 3 sheets to the wind though by the time I got to this thread

I kept thinking I'd get back to this and amplify my response a bit more but since everyone's adding on so beautifully, I left it.

The escalation of violence on both sides in response to each other's actions is an old story in Ireland. I'm grateful for your addition but its a lot more of the same unfortunately. I was so tired the other night and had good intentions of a detailed explanation of all the biggest events but I just couldn't summon up the energy. I find myself with the same malaise tonight - dead tired (but at least I'm not drinking!) and unable to will myself to go over the gory details.

and I'd like to add this; further complicating the situation is the fact that after 400 years or so or being in northern Ireland, the descendants of the transplanted English and lowland Scots now consider themselves Irish. I think if Britain could, they'd cut the cord. But many people fear there would be (pardon the phrase) quite a donnybrook if that took place. The Catholic/Protestant thing runs WAY deep.............

and technically if they were born in the six counties then they are correct.

(these categories often transcend the normal lines of class and ideology)

1)Nationalist-members of the mainly-Catholic pro-Irish minority who seek to unite the area in question(whatever you call it)with the Irish Republic via non-violent political means. Main organization: The Social Democratic and Labour Party, once the main pro-Irish party in the North but now in long-term decline in popular support..

2)Republican-members of the same minority who use(or used until recently, in the case of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and its assumed political arm, Sinn Fein)violent means to the same end. Now mainly consisting of Republican splinter groups like the REAL IRA and the Continuity IRA. As Sinn Fein has moved away from armed struggle and advanced a leftist social and economic agenda, it has become the strongest pro-Irish party in the North(and, because it's been the only anti-austerity party in the Republic)has gained a great deal of support in the Republic as well). The republican splinter groups have little popular support in the North, other than among the most destitute and those who feel the most embittered by British rule-nonetheless, the retain the ability to inflict violence on many people.

3)Unionists-members of the mainly-Protestant British majority(a shrinking majority in recent years)who seek to keep the area under British rule by mainly political means(although there have been suspicions that some of them have ties to the next group I'm going to mention). These were once mainly represented by the Ulster Unionist Party(UUP), whose support has collapsed in recent years, but now mainly vote for the Democratic Unionist Party(DUP), the party of former anti-Irish hardliner Rev. Ian Paisley(himself once rumoured to have secret ties with the violent Loyalists), a figure who significantly moderated his views in later years and now cooperates on some issues with people like Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, who himself was once considered one of the most ruthless of the republican "hard men". Independent Unionists take most of the remaining vote that once went to the UUP.

4)Loyalists-members of the pro-British community in the North who traditionally have used violent methods to preserve the status quo(or, in the case of a few, to push for an independent Northern Ireland). They include groups like the Ulster Defence Association and The Ulster Volunteer Force. Their support base, like that of the republican militants, is based in the poorest pro-British areas, such as the Shankill Estate(in Britain and Ireland, an "estate" is a public housing development...i.e., the equivalent of "the projects" in places like Boston, NYC, or Chicago. There is also a political party, the Progressive Unionist Party, that was once a Loyalist group but has given up the armed struggle.

Loyalists and Unionists also traditionally belong to the Orange Order, a pro-British organization named in honor of William of Orange, the Dutch-born Protestant-aspirant to the British throne who defeated the more pro-Catholic King James II in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, thus preserving British rule over all of Ireland(James had at least implied he'd let Ireland have its freedom) and cementing a Protestant succession to the British crown.

That's a brief summary. Go into any pub in either part of Belfast or Derry and they'll tell you THEIR version of the rest.

I hope you enjoyed your wine, I know I did!

The Loyalists are the Irish version of our republicans.

treated in the six counties?
I think you will find that there has been a concerted regime of oppression directed at the Catholic population in
the six counties and Protestants in Ireland enjoy a life pretty much free of sectarian hassles.

I would like to see all the people of Ireland vote on whether or not they want Ireland unified and if they so vote,
the Brits need to get the fuck out

im not sure that dublin would want them anyway as they would then face an insurgency from the loyalists with backing from across the water. None of the Loyalists ive ever met would walk away from ulster without a fight much the same as members of the PIRA.

Should it come to pass that the people of Ireland vote to have their country united, my guess is that
the authorities can handle seditious activities.