Causes of terrorism in Northern Ireland, 1969-1972

This study will attempt to illustrate how the interrelationship of the long-term and the short-term causes produced the political terrorism in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1972. It interprets the effects of colonialism and its consequences upon both communities, including the resulting perceptions with which both communities were bequeathed. Both communities perceive of themselves as continuously besieged minorities, the Protestants within the whole of Ireland and the Catholics within Northern Ireland. The study then examines the immediate grievances and issues that precipitated the violent troubles of the period.

This inquiry seeks to clarify the synthesis in Northern Ireland between the British colonial legacy and the political, social and economic grievances of the Catholics in the late 1960s in order to ascertain the scope and depth of the causes of the violence in the late 1960 and the early 1970s. The violence of this period can probably never be fully understood, but an examination of the above-synthesis creates a model by which we can begin to grasp the dynamics of the causes of this particular episode of terrorism.