Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0, Martin Luther University, language: English, abstract: The origins of the conflict in Northern Ireland are various and can be traced back to the seventeenth century. In the following work I explore the period from the late 1960s to the early 1970s with focus on the segregation issue of the Protestant and Catholic communities, its settings and reasons. Furthermore the social cohesion of the paramilitary groups and “their” communities is a discussed aspect. The conflict in Northern Ireland has a complex and deeply rooted history. My intention in writing about the start-up period of the inter-community violence in Northern Ireland was to give a deeper insight into this structure. Following the statements of sociologists, the violence in Northern Ireland can be regarded as ”a surface expression of ‘deeper’ socio-economic and/or ideological contexts.” Hence the outbreak of rioting in the late 1960s can be considered as a desperate attempt of an oppressed minority to acquit itself from a discriminating majority. Violence in Northern Ireland was a cycle of provocation and reaction, of misunderstanding and discrimination. It is a matter of fact that violence provokes violence in turn and that prejudices are handed over from one generation to the following generation. Cumulative factors to the violence were, inter alia, the direct involvement of British troops, a Northern Irish police force which was biased against Catholics, provocations running out from the opposing camps and a British security-policy, primarily directed against Catholics, which seemed to be the case especially at the beginning of the conflict. The following work contains an overview about the historical origins of the conflict and a description of the main conflict parties inclusive the paramilitaries and leads then to the outbreak of “the Troubles” and the first years of violence. The last chapter explores some facts of the segregation between Protestant and Catholic communities.

For thirty-eight long years, from 1968 until the St Andrew's Agreement and IRA decommissioning in 2006, Northern Ireland was wracked by inter-communal violence. This is a definitive overview of the period, explaining key issues lucidly and economically.

This volume highlights how, for over 30 years, the seemingly irreconcilable divisions between the Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland has spawned a great deal of horrific violence and a total of over 3,700 deaths, with the toll of injuries much higher. Given this scale of human suffering, this collection of essays attempts to understand how and why such conflict occurs, and seeks to formulate ways in which it can be overcome. It brings together a number of prestigious research projects into cross-community conflict and reconciliation, funded by the Central Community Relations Unit (CCRU) in Northern Ireland. These have been conducted from within a range of social science disciplines including communication, politics, psychology, and sociology.

In Reporting the Troubles sixty-eight renowned journalists tell their stories of working in Northern Ireland during the Troubles - the victims that they have never forgotten, the events that have never left them, and the lasting impact of the experience of working through those years.

Lee Child, Eoin McNamee, and others explore the dark corners and alleyways of Belfast.

The darkly comic second novel from the author of the Man Booker Prize winner Milkman, now available in the United States In the small town of Tiptoe Floorboard, the Doe clan, a close-knit family of criminals and victims, has the run of the place. Yet there are signs that patriarch John Doe’s reign may be coming to an end. When Jetty Doe breaks into a gun store and makes off with a Kalashnikov, the stage is set for a violent confrontation. But while Jetty is making her way across town in a taxi, an elusive, chatty narrator takes us on a wild journey, zooming in and out on various members of the Doe clan with long, digressive riffs that chase down the causes and repercussions of Jetty’s act. Before Milkman took the world by storm after winning the Man Booker Prize, Anna Burns had already honed her distinctive voice. In her second novel, Little Constructions, she exhibits the same linguistic brio, coruscating wit, and scintillating insight into men, women, and the roots of violence. A wickedly funny novel that swoops and spirals as it examines the long shadow of abuse and violent crime, Little Constructions explores what transpires when unspeakable realities, long hidden from view, can no longer be denied.