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13. April 2004 Northern Ireland and it´s difficult´ political situation (conflict(s)), including the relationship to the Republic of Ireland Explanations: Áras an Uachtaráin: Gaelic name for the Irish Parliament Sinn Fein: Gaelic: 'we ourselves': radical nationalistic irish party, founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith; partly ideas from the Irish Secret Society 'Fenier' ( founded in 1858 in the USA); displaced the moderate Home-Rule-Movement in the struggle for complete independence of Ireland; in 1921 the radical wing is splitted of and lateron adjoins E. de Valeras' party 'Fianna Fàil'. Fianna Fàil: gaelic: 'soldiers of fate': founded in 1926, radical republican opposing party of the Irish Free State, lateron governmental party Oireachtas: Gaelic name for Irland's bicameral legislature Dáil Éireann: Gaelic name of the lower house of the Irish Parliament ( = House of Commons) Seanad Éireann: Gaelic name of the upper house of the Irish Parliament ( = House of Lords) Black and Tans: An auxiliary British police force Fine Gael: Gaelic: ' company of gaels': arisen by the splitting of Sinn Fein Vocabulary to affirm - bestätigen to claim - hier: beanspruchen withdrawal - Zurückziehung tacit - stillschweigend irregulars - Irreguläre outlawed - geächtet gradually - nach und nach, allmählich means - Mittel persistent - anhaltend, ständig postwar years - Nachkriegsjahre to inaugurate - einführen to prospere - erfolgreich sein endemic - endemisch, krankhaft right-wing faction - rechtsorientierte Fraktion to be beleaguered - belagert werden to maintain - aufrechterhalten focus - Brennpunkt outrage - Ausschreitung referendum - Volksentscheid to retain the ties - die Bindung aufrechterhalten to abandon - aufgeben futile - sinnlos Provisional Wing - provisorische Gruppe to be ambushed - aus dem Hinterhalt überfallen werden to revive - hier: wieder auffrischen to launch - 'vom Stapel lassen' to announce - ankündigen cease-fire - Waffenstillstand to maintain - aufrechterhalten pledge - Versprechen framework - Rahmen peace negotiations - Friedensverhandlungen self-determination - Selbstentschlossenheit to propose - vorschlagen cross-border parliament - Länderübergreifende Regierung to stall - stehen bleiben life sentence - lebenslängliche Haftstrafe riot - Aufruhr to hamper - behindern, aufhalten to commence - beginnen to reject - ablehnen, zurückweisen to advocate - befürworten settlement - hier: Regelung to establish - gründen assassinations - geglückter Mordanschlag/ Attentat outline - Umriß; hier: Rahmenbedingungen to elevate - emporheben civil service level - Ebene des Staatsdienstes( ohne Richter und Lehrer) ministerial level - Ebene der Minister, ministerielle Ebene indication - Anzeichen, Hinweis fragmention - Zerbrechen, Zerschlagung to go off - hochgehen, explodieren peace rallies - Friedenskundgebungen to prompt - ermahnen to restore - wiederherstellen to severe - ab- bzw. durchtrennen to be vested - persönl. interessiert sein to head - leiten to select - auswählen to approve - bestätigen to appoint - ernennen slate - to bring down - hier: zu Fall bringen culmination - Höhepunkt fraught - voller insight - Einsicht, Einblick cumulative - gehäuft to be surefooted - sicher auf den Füßen sein to blight - zunichte machen decade - Jahrzehnt livelihood - Lebensunterhalt to resound - widerhallen to scatter - zerstreuen to commit - verpflichten to fester - eitern compelling - zwingend bully - Raufbold to drag back - zurückschleppen painstaking - gewissenhaft promoting - fördernd reconciliation - Versöhnung Report: Northern Ireland conflicts Northern Ireland after World War II In 1949, when Éire became the Republic of Ireland, the British Parliament affirmed the status of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom unless ist own Parliament decided otherwise.
Although the republic still claimed the six northern counties, its withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Nations was a tacit acceptance of the partition. In 1955, however, irregulars of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA) began a campaign of terrorism aimed at securing the union of Northern Ireland with the republic. Terrorist acts continued through 1957 and 1958, gradually becoming less frequent in the early 1960s. In 1962 the government of the Republic of Ireland condemned terrorism as a means of achieving unification. Persistent economic difficulties through the postwas years led to the formation, in 1955, of a Northern Ireland Development Council, which met with considerable success. By the mid-1960s some 230 new firms had been founded and another 200 considerably expanded.
He people of Northern Ireland benefited from social welfare programs inaugurated after the war by the United Kingdom. More recently, however, Northern Ireland has not prospered, in part due to the violence that has become endemic in the area. Growing Violence From the beginning, Catholics in Northern Ireland were a disadvantaged minority in matters of employment, housing and effective political participation. In 1968 they organized a civil rights movement to protest what they felt to be discrimination, often provoking violent reactions. Moderate Protestants recognized a need for governmental reform, but were strongly opposed by a right-wing faction of the ruling Ulster Unionist Party. British troops, sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 to help the beleaguered local police, became a permanent presence, maintaining British authority and limiting Protestant reaction - but also becoming the focus of terrorist outrage.
In 1972 the British abolished the Northern Ireland Parliament and imposed direct rule. In a 1973 referendum largely boycotted by Roman Catholics, the voters of Northern Ireland again chose to retain ties with Great Britain rather than join the republic. In 1974 a 15-member Northern Ireland executive, made up of both Protestants and Catholics, was quickly abandoned when it provoked a general strike led by Protestant extremists. Violence increased in the following years. Two Belfast women, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for working to reconcile Northern Ireland´s religious communities. Their work, however, was futile; attempts to bring the two factions together were fruitless.
Meanwhile the so-called Provisional Wing of the IRA maintained steady terrorist pressure, and some Protestant extremists matched their violent acts. In 1979 the IRA murdered Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma ( British Minister of Defence in the years 1958-1965) and, on the same day, ambushed a party of British soldiers, killing 18 of them. Lord Mountbatten´s murder was roundly condemned, and by 1981 the IRA was using a new tactc to revive sympathy: members detained in British prisons began a hunger strike, and each resulting death set of a new cycle of violence. The division between the Northern Irish communities meanwhile remained as sharp as ever, with no solution in sight. In October 1984 Margret Thatcher narrowly escaped injury when a bomb planted by Irish extremists went off in Brighton´s Grand Hotel during a party conference. In 1985 an intergovernmental conference between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was established.
It was welcomed by many as an important step towards cross-border cooperation on security, economic, and social issues, and eventual peace. Protestant Unionists and some Irish nationalists, however, denounced the accord. As the 1990s began, British troops were still patrolling the streets of Londonderry and Belfast, and the IRA continued to launch sporadic terrorist attacks on British civilians and military personnel in the British Isles and continental Europe. However, on August 31, 1994, after 25 years of fighting, the IRA announced an unconditional cease-fire, promising to suspend military operations in favor of peace talks. In October of that year, representatives from the Protestant extremist groups announced a cease-fire, on the condition that the IRA maintains ist pledge. In light of cease-fire, the British announced in January 1995 that the Ulster Army patrols would be limited in Belfast to the evening hours.
On February 22, 1995, British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister John Burton presented a written framework for peace negotiations. Their suggestion included the establishment of an all-Irish governmental body, an agreement by the Irish government to abandon its claims on Northern Ireland, and a guarantee to allow the people of Northern Ireland to choose whether to remain part of Great Britain or become part of the Republic of Ireland. The document also recognized Northern Ireland´s right to self-determination, expanded its autonomy and representation in the British government, and proposed the creation of a cross-border parliament representing Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However, the issues of disarming the IRA and removing British troops from Northern Ireland remained controversial. In April 1995 the British government elevated the peace talks from the civil service level to the ministerial level as an indication of its seriousness. However, the peace process stalled when Great Britain made the controversial decision in July 1995 to release a British soldier convicted of murdering a Belfast teenager from prison after serving only three years of a life sentence.
This desicion, thought by some to be an act to win votes by Major, resulted in massive riots by Catholics in Belfast and Londonderry, the first outbreak of violence since the IRA declared its cease-fire in August 1994. The peace efforts were further hampered by Major´s insistence that the IRA gives up its weapons before commencing peace talks, an idea that was rejected by both IRA and Sinn Fein. The two sides failed to agree on disarming the IRA, which resumed its terrorist activities in February 1996. After a week of bombing, Major and Bruton met again, setting May 30 as date for the election of a cross-border parliament, which would be made up of members from British and Irish parties and which would debate the situation in Northern Ireland. In late April, despite the threat of exclusion from the elections if the cease-fire was not restored, the IRA claimed responsibility for two more bombs that exploded in London. Political Parties The Ulster Union Party governed Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1972.
More recently, the party has split into two groups; the Official Unionists and the Democratic Unionists; the ones mentioned last are opposed to any compromise on Northern Ireland´s future in relation to Great Britain and the most hostile to the Republic of Ireland. The other main political parties are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which supports peaceful reunification with Ireland, the Alliance Party, and Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Party. Until 1994 Sinn Fein was excluded from talks between Britain and the Republic of Ireland on the future of Northern Ireland because it refused to denounce violence. However, its candidatesparticipated in local and national elections. Irish Republican Army (IRA) Irish Republican Army ( IRA), an outlawed Irish military organization founded in 1919 to fight British rule in Ireland. The IRA supported the aims of Sinn Fein, an Irish nationalist society that also advocated independence from Great Britain, but the two groups operated separatly.
The IRA first engaged in guerilla fighting in the war for independence from 1919 to 1922. Like Sinn Fein, however, it split over the postwar settlement that established the Irish Free State. A small IRA faction accepted the settlement and became part of the army. The larger faction, then called the Irregulars, fought the Irish Free State government in the civil war of 1922-1923. Although it surrendered in 1923, the IRA continued to recruit and train members and periodically engaged in violent acts. It was outlawed in 1931 and again in 1935.
After Ireland withdrew from the Commonwealth in 1948, the IRA turned its attention to removing British rule from Northern Ireland and establishing a unified Irish republic. In the late 1960s Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland began a forceful campaign for improved economic and political status. Support for the IRA then grew, and IRA attacks against Protestant activists and the British army escalated. Disagreement in 1969 over use of terrorist tactics led to split into two groups: a radical group, the Provisional IRA, which carried out assassinations and other terrorist activities; and the main group, the Official IRA. The failure to agree on whether the IRA should disarm before the talks began led to fragmention of the peace process, and in February 1996 the IRA ended cease-fire, exploding a bomb in East London. Later that month, peace rallies in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland prompted British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister John Bruton to agree to a summit.
In late April that year, despite the threat of exclusion from the elections if the cease-fire was not restored, the IRA claimed responsibility for two more bombs that exploded in London. Áras an Uachtaráin Occupancy The house is the Official Residence of the President of Ireland and is the setting for many public functions. Although it is not fully open to the public, some 15,000 people visit it each year. Ireland´s government Under the constitution of 1937, Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic state. It became a republic in 1949 when Commonwealth ties with Great Britain were severed. Executive Executive power under the Irish constitution is vested in a cabinet, which forms a government of some 15 members.
The government is responsible to the lower house of the national legislature. A prime minister serves as head of government and is appointed by the president after nomination by the lower house. Members of the government head the administrative departments, or ministries. They are selected by the prime minister, approved by the lower house, and appointed by the president. The president of Ireland is the head of state and is elected by direct popular vote for a seven-year term. Legislature Ireland has a bicameral legislature known as the Oireachtas.
The lower house, or Dáil Éireann, has 60 members - 11 appointed by the prime minister, 6 elected by university graduates, and 43 chosen by an electoral college of some 900 representatives from local governments and the national legislature. He slate of candidates represents labour, agriculture and fisheries, public administration and social services, commerce and industry, and national culture. The upper house is limited in authority, while the lower house has power to support or bring down governments in the parliamentary tradition. President the current president of the Áras an Uachtaráin, the Irish Parliament, is Mary McAleese. Mary McAleese was born in 1951, studied law at Queen´s University in Belfast and after that was called tho the Northern Ireland Bar , where she mainly practised in criminal and family law and got to the top with that. On 11 November 1997, Mary McAleese was inaugurated as the eighth President of Ireland.
Mary McAleese says, that she thinks it is clearly work for politicians and the role of the Presidency does not permit direct political involvement in the Northern Ireland conflicts. But she had tried to support and encourage all those who are engaged in the process. Latest news from Northern Ireland There have been peace negotiations between the Republik of Ireland , Great Britain and Northern Ireland again, which will transform the politics of Northern Ireland and redefine the historically contientious relations between London, Dublin and Belfast. The agreement came into effect on ...
What the president thinks about the agreement (See following page)
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