Recommended
Websites:
Northern
Ireland Assembly
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/
RTE :
Radio Telefis Eireann
cf 23rd February 2008: Martin McGuinness
Web link on Bloody Sunday:
Interactive map:
BBC
documentary in 6 parts on The Hunger Strike at the Maze Prison in 1981:
.
Recommended
films:
Paul Greengrass’s Bloody Sunday, 2002.
Steve McQueen’s Hunger, 2008.
Ken Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley, 2006.
Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins, 1996.
Recommended
book:
Brian Moore’s Lies of Silence
Chronology of British Prime Ministers:
1964-70: Harold Wilson (Labour)
1970-74: Edward Heath (Conservative)
1974-76: Harold Wilson
1979-79: James Callaghan (Labour)
1979-90: Margaret Thatcher (Conservative)
1990-97: John Major (Conservative)
1997-2007: Tony Blair (New Labour)
2007-2010: Gordon Brown (New Labour)
2010- (…) : David Cameron (Conservative),
in coalition with Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats
Chronology of Northern Ireland First
Ministers:
1943-1963: Viscount Brookeborough
1963-1969: Terence O’Neill
1969-1971: James Chichester-Clark
1971-1972: Brian Faulkner (gave his
resignation on 24th March 1972, when Edward Heath removed control of security from the government of
Northern Ireland, and appointed a Secretary of State for the province.)
Unionist political parties:
Since the creation of Northern Ireland in
1921, the Ulster Unionist Party held
approximately two thirds of the seats in Stormont (the Northern Irish
Parliament).
The supremacy of Unionism was guaranteed
by the polarisation of the political “debate”. Each vote was in favour or
against the constitutional status quo. O’Neill’s reform attempts created
divisions within the party. Those in favour of the reform were ready to
compromise. The Conservatives within the party wanted to maintain the
institutionalisation of the protestant power. Many supporters of O’Neill left
the party to found a new party which aimed to unite Protestants and Catholics
in a cross-community movement: the Alliance Party created in April 1970[1].
To the right of the spectrum, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) was
founded in September 1971 by the charismatic leader Ian Paisley and dissidents from the Ulster Unionist Party. This
party denounced any concession as treason. This party became the second
unionist political party.
Unionist
extra-parliamentary groups:
which stemmed from divisions within the unionist party.
The
Ulster Vanguard was founded in
1972 by William Craig, former Home Secretary in the Stormont Government). Craig
attempted to reshape unionism by unifying loyalist political and paramilitary
groups. The Independence of Ulster was to be preferred to a re-unification of
the whole Ireland.
Unionist paramilitary groups:
UVF
(Ulster Volunteer Force):
The acronym was adopted in 1966, 50 years after the Easter Rising of 1916. It
started a series of attacks and assassinations against Catholics and
Nationalists, and became the most feared loyalist paramilitary group. Denounced
by O’Neill as early as June 1966, it specialised in “tit-for-tat” killings:
sectarian killings committed randomly as a retaliation against IRA attacks on
the Protestants.
A political wing of the movement developed
in 1977 under the name: Progressive Unionist Party (PUP)
UDA
(Ulster Defence Association)
was created in 1971. It was an exclusively a working-class organisation. With
some 40 000 members in 1972, the UDA quickly became the biggest paramilitary
organisation in Northern Ireland.
The UDP (Ulster Democratic Party) that is,
the political wing of the movement was founded in 1981.
Nationalist Political Movements:
SLPD:
The Social Democratic and Labour Party, was founded in 1970 by a group of anti-unionist MPs
in The Stormont Parliament.
It was composed of Labour Republicans (cf:
Gerry Fitt, leader of the new party), of independents who had been involved in
the Civil Rights Movement (cf: John Hume) and of a nationalist MP)
The party advocated a moderate form of
socialism and gained the support of the majority of Catholics in Northern
Ireland. It was opposed to violence, and recommended a co-operation between
Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It was in favour of the
re-unification of Ireland (that is the end of Partition) by constitutional
means, and with the consent of the Unionist population.
Sinn
Fein, The IRA and the Provisional IRA:
Sinn Fein: The movement splits in the 60s.
A majority of the party wants to give up the policy of abstention in parliament
and focus on the political area.
A minority: the Provisional IRA (PIRA)
decides to maintain military actions and the policy of abstention. The PIRA is
responsible for most of the terrorist attacks committed on the republican side.
[1] (Le parti attirait aussi des membres du
Parti Nationaliste et du parti Travailliste nord-Irlandais.)
