Ireland/Northern Ireland Questions

Hello everyone...

So for those of you who are on the internet do not want to think about porn and reach their goals I present a off topic discussion:

So this forum is supposed to be anonymous. So what I want to ask is, "is anyone from Ireland/Northern Ireland" but that would give away your location and maybe thats a bad idea. However, for the record, I must say that when it comes to learning about a country I trust the citizens of that country more then history books, YouTube or any other means of information. I don't know why, I just rather here from people who have lived the history or have family ties to the history. I feel like thats more honest history.

Today I was told by society "go home until you feel better" because of a mild sore throat so thats what I did.

I spent my day learning about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. What I have learned so far is that it all started maybe in the 1100's with colonization, got even more intense with the potato famine and the Irish learning that the British could not care less about them, got even more inflamed by the Irish freedom movement after world war one and even worse after Northern Ireland decided to remain apart of the United Kingdom while the Republic of Ireland broke away from Britain.

Here are some questions.

1) Some of the stuff I'm learning about says the Troubles were war - when somebody says war too me I think Iraq invasion (2002?), the Vietnam conflict, World War Two. Large scale, brutal fighting. I am not dismissing the real conflicts, the killings and hurt but some of the footage I've seen looks "small scale" (yes telling that to the families of a victim of a bombing is a good way to get punched) instead of "all out war" did the Troubles feel or look like war? Was it actually war? Do I just need to expand my definition of war?

2) Some people think the troubles ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement but other people say its never ended - I just looked on BBC Northern Ireland's page and it seems there are bombs being found and graffiti of para-military groups - so did the Troubles ever stop?

3) Whats the solution? I can see forming a united Ireland free of British influence on the island would piss off loyalists but keeping Northern Ireland as it is pissess of republicans - so what can be done?

4) Why all this hate between the different fractions of Christians? Pardon my igorance but whats the big deal? So some people go to a Catholic church and others to a Anglican, United or Presbyterian Church or whatever else - who cares? Whats wrong with the line "Hello Mr. Johnson - I see your off to your regular church service - have a nice day sir." What am I missing?

 

Hello - I've now seen a bit more footage of the Troubles - I've decided it was full scale war for a while anyway.

If anyone has additional information about this that can help me understand the history of Northern Ireland a bit more it be wonderful Thank you.