Just been reading this from an American... one who seems to have taken a lot of time and trouble to research... I thought that was useful as most here are American so perhaps you are able to relate to an American telling the story... we know the Irish and the Americans have always had a close relationship and many Americans have Scots or Irish ancestors...
http://www.everywhereist.com/the-troubles-in-northern-ireland-continued/
As for me I am not a real fan of violence or war... in fact i hate it and prefer not to research it.. but sometimes it happens that a discussion brings topics up and you want to learn more in order that you can contribute on an informed basis....
For me this started when i learned that a lot of people think that Northern Ireland was about the people of Northern Ireland wanting to get the Brits out; the idea being that the Brits were occupying the land... It wasn't quite like that.. indeed it was very not like that...
I don't want to over-simplify as I think that happens too often as it is.. but I can correct the myth that it was all of the Irish trying to get rid of the Brits and it wasn't that we were imposing anything... we were just carrying out the wishes of the majority who wanted to remain allied and part of the UK. Yes the IRA didn't want that... but the majority did..
Crimes and murders were committed on both sides and British soldiers got killed trying to protect the people of Northern Ireland AND some of the Brit soldiers committed crimes or failed to investigate thoroughly ALL murders..... no one was perfect....
SO now we know why the Brits were there... but why did the people want to be allied with Britain in the first place.. are the Brits entirely innocent? well not really but we have to remember that the Brits, that's English AND Scottish, perhaps a fair few Welsh too.... started going to live in Northern Ireland in the 11 00s so that's thousands of years ago.. and this was natural.. we pretty much originated from the same people.. we were all at one time Celts... and we were invaded and the Celts were pushed up to Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.... so arguably at the time ENglish and Scots started settling there the people were pretty much the same people.. I should add that Irish have always ALSO been able to come here to settle.. and have done so.... it's not like they were not free to come here... Differences happened due to religion... the fight wasn't about religion as such but it was heavily influenced by it...and remained so...
And both sides hated each other... the protestants hated the catholics and vice versa... and they killed each other... often in revenge... and of course the IRA also bombed the UK, mostly London.
