The Irish Republican Army Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Irish Republican Army - Research Paper Example Great Britain, under Oliver Cromwell, established overlordship of Ireland in the seventeenth century. While Scottish and English Protestants formed a majority in the North, the South remained predominantly Catholic. The widening economic disparity between the industrialized North, and the agricultural South (where the Protestants remained exploitative, absentee landowners), led to the abysmal poverty of the Irish Catholics, and to their alienation. The overwhelming majority of Irish representatives to Parliament remained Anglican landowners. Repressive laws of the 17th and 18th centuries prohibited Irish Catholics from owning or leasing land, and denied them political rights and education. An Irish revolt in 1798 was brutally suppressed by Great Britain, resulting in the Great Hunger of 1845 – 1852, in which more than a million people starved and millions more emigrated. The ruthless reaction of the British Government was largely responsible for this. The Protestants and the C atholics separated into two warring camps and a long period of agitation and violence commenced. (Kuznicki, Willett, Griffin, Manley and Matten, nd.).