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Northern Ireland Timeline
Ireland before Partition
12th-13th centuries: Ireland was colonised by Anglo-Normans with a central administration established, but this was uneven and insecure. Intermittent plantation and conquest under Henry VIII and his children (most famously Elizabeth I) resulted in Ireland being more thoroughly subjected to the English Crown.
17th century (early 1600s): plantation of the province of Ulster under King James I. By 1641 Protestants owned 41% of the land and were a majority in the Irish parliament. Territory of Northern Ireland largely follows that of these plantation settlements.
1649-52: Oliver Cromwell reconquers Ireland. Estimated 616,000 dead of a population of 1,448,000.
1685: by now Protestants’ share of the Irish population is 20% (predominantly in Ulster) and they own80% of the land.
1688: a Catholic restoration to the English Crown fails when King James II, the last Catholic monarch, is overthrown and the Dutch (Protestant) Prince William of Orange and his wife Mary are jointly offered the Crown by parliament, leading to a second conquest of the three kingdoms of the British Isles.
1689: William of Orange wins the siege of Derry against Irish Catholic royalists.
1690, 12 July:William of Orange’s troops win the Battle of the Boyne against James II’s.
1690s: More settlers to Ulster, particularly from Scotland, and more land confiscations. (By 1778 Catholic land ownership was down to only 5%.)
1690s-1829:Catholics subjected to penal laws in Ireland.Excluded from religious, political and social establishments; Catholic schools, burials and marriage banned. Presbyterians in Ulster also faced Anglican discrimination and exclusion but not as severe and this was removed by 1780.
1690s-1800: English then British Crown ruled Ireland indirectly through Anglo-Irish Protestant élite in a Dublin parliament.
1707: Scotland entered into full parliamentary union with England, creating Great Britain.
18th century: much agrarian violence with an ethno-religious character. Armed conflict between rival secret societies of Catholic and Protestant peasants was common in parts of Ulster.
1790s: post-French Revolution Britain was at war with France and concerned about its vulnerable western border (Ireland). Catholic Relief Act passed in the Irish parliament 1793, giving Catholics voting rights but still not the right to sit in parliament.
1791: Presbyterian radicals in Antrim, Down and Dublin formed the United Irishmen, embracing Catholic emancipation and gaining support amongst Catholics and Presbyterians.
1798: United Irishmen uprising (failed).
1801: Act of Union whereby the Irish parliament was formally integrated into the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland. (Full Catholic emancipation proposed by William Pitt was not passed.)
1801 onwards: Britain controlled Ireland directly through the Union. Ireland was formally integrated into Britain in the new state the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but was never treated the same way as other parts of the UK.
19th century: competing political ideologies of Irish Nationalism andUnionism developed.
19th century: various small-scale nationalist/republican insurrections in 1803, 1848 and 1867. As with the earlier United Irishmen, many of these Irish nationalists/republicans were Protestant.
1830s-1840s: ‘Repeal of the Union’ movement (Daniel O’Connell).
1845-49:the Great Famine in Ireland, after which Irish nationalist politics divergebetween militant Irish Nationalism and parliamentary Nationalism.
1870s onwards: Home Rule movements (Isaac Butt and Charles Stewart Parnell).
1886: first attempt to pass Home Rule bill in Westminster fails.
1893: second attempt to pass Home Rule bill in Westminster fails.
1905: Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) forms to resist Home Rule.
1911: third attempt to pass Home Rule bill in Westminster succeeds; bill due to become law in 1914. Ulster unionists threaten civil war if the bill comes into force.
1912, 28 September: the Ulster Covenant is signed by thousands of unionists in Ulster, to express defiance against the introduction of Home Rule in Ireland. Subsequently the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is formed – a military force of about 100,000 unionists. Nationalists respond by establishing the National Volunteers and its breakaway group the Irish Volunteers.
1914 June: an amending bill to permit any Ulster county to vote itself out of Home Rule for a few years is introduced in the House of Lords; the Lords demand the exclusion of all of Ulster from the bill. World War I begins.
1914, 12 July: the UUC declares itself the provisional government of Ulster.
1914 September: the Home Rule bill passes into law but is not operational during WWI. During WWI the UVF is formed into an exclusive division of the British military, a privilege not granted to Irish nationalists who fought for the UK during WWI.
1916 April: Easter Rising rebellion against British rule.
1918 December: Sinn Féin, standing for full Irish independence, wins an electoral victory in the General Election (the last island-wide election held in Ireland), winning 73 of the 105 Irish seats in the British House of Commons.
1919 January: elected members of Sinn Féin (those not in prison or killed) declare an Irish Republic and convene the First DáilÉireann (Assembly of Ireland). The Irish War of Independence/Anglo-Irish War(1919-1921/22) breaks out on the same day between guerrilla forces of the IRA and the British military, as the British government refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the First Dáil.
1920: Government of Ireland Act partitions the island of Ireland, creating two jurisdictions and parliaments (Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland). A six-county (Antrim, Armagh, Down, Londonderry, Fermanagh and Tyrone) Northern Ireland province of the UK is created; this has a devolved parliament at Stormont in Belfast with wide-ranging powers but no control over the armed forces and foreign affairs.The armed Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) is established at the end of 1920, almost totally Protestant.
1921 December to January 1922:the Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed between the UK Government and representatives of the de facto Irish Republic and ratified in Ireland, ending the war and creating a26-county Irish Free State with British dominion status (coming into force in December 1922) and allowing six-county Northern Ireland to opt out of the Irish Free State. The Treaty also provides for a Boundary Commission to review the provisional border established with the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, should Northern Ireland opt out of the Irish Free State (which it did). In the aftermath of the War, the Act and the Treaty there is widespread communal violence in Northern Ireland andIrish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla activity against the new Northern Ireland ‘statelet’.
1922 June to May 1923: the Irish Civil War is fought between pro- and anti-Treaty nationalists (anti-Treaty IRA forces lose).
1923: the Northern Ireland government is given control over its security and policing.
1925: the Boundary Commission wants to transfer some land to Northern Ireland, causing controversy; the three governments decide to ignore the Commission’s report and largely confirm the existing border. The Irish Free State is released of its Treaty obligation to the British national debt in exchange for accepting the border.
Northern Ireland after Partition
Late 1920s/early 1930s: sectarian speeches by the unionist leadership in Northern Ireland become more common.
1934: Northern Irish Prime Minister James Craig speaks of a ‘Protestant parliament for a Protestant people’(this was in response to the statement of a nationalist politician in the Free State about a Catholic state for a Catholic people).
1937: new Irish Constitution contains a territorial claim on Northern Ireland and gives the Catholic Church a ‘special position’ in the state.
1948 September: Irish Government severs ties with the British Commonwealth.
1949: the UK’s Ireland Bill recognises the 26-county Ireland as the completely independent Republic of Ireland, no longer part of His Majesty’s Dominions.
1950s: short-lived armed border campaign is carried out by the IRA but fails to achieve anything.
1963: Terence O’Neill becomes Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister, attempting some reforms.
1960s: by now the Catholic middle-class has increased but at the same time the position of the least privileged Catholics has deteriorated (the unskilled section of the Protestant working-class has diminished but it has increased in the Catholic working-class). Meanwhile Northern Ireland is influenced by changing Anglo-Irish relations stemming from economic growth in the Republic and its desire for entry to the European Economic Community.
Early 1960s: political pressure groups such as the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) form, agitating about discrimination against Catholics, discrimination in public housing allocation, public employment (Catholics were seriously under-represented above manual labour level), and local government elections (there was still a property-based electoral system which meant Catholics were over-represented among the disenfranchised because of their lower average socio-economic position). Gerrymandering of local government elections also occurred to keep nationalists out of political control.
1964: an organised civil rights movement develops in Northern Ireland, influenced by the international civil rights agenda of the 1960s.
1967: the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) forms.
Mid-1968: civil rights movement leads demonstrations, faced with loyalist counter-demonstrations led by the Reverend Ian Paisley and Major Ronald Bunting.
1968 October: a civil rights march in Derry results in rioting and confrontations with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC, the police), which was widely shown on national and international television. (The Cameron Commission that investigates concludes that the RUC used unnecessary force.)
1968 November: the unionist government issues a five-point reform programme but this was not accepted by either the civil rights movement or most unionists.
1969 January:a People’s Democracy protest march from Belfast to Derry ends in violent clashes with loyalists and off-duty B Specials (the only remaining division of the USC) in and near Derry.
1969: political crisis, dissolution of parliament, resignation of O’Neill.
1969 July-August: violent communal riots leading to 1,505 of Belfast’s 28,616 Catholic households being forced to leave their homes. (1969-1972 estimated 30,000 to 60,000 people driven out of their homes, 80% Catholic and 20% Protestant.) In urban areas wholesale population movements lead to separate Protestant and Catholic enclaves, particularly in working-class areas. The events of 1968 and 1969 lead to community vigilantes forming and the resurgence of paramilitarism.
Civil War
1969 August: British Army deployed to the streets of Belfast and Derry to maintain order. Initially seen as protectors by the Catholic community.
1970 June: massive arms search and curfew of the Lower Falls Road in Catholic west Belfast, during which soldiers abused local people, allegedly stole property and caused unnecessary damage. The IRA gains increased support and recruits.
1971: the Provisional IRA moves to the offensive and begins actively targeting personnel of the British Army, the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and the RUC.
1971: internment without trial for suspected terrorists is introduced (ended in 1975). More recruits to the IRA.
1972 January: Bloody Sunday – the army fires on a banned civil rights demonstration in Derry attended by nearly 10,000 people, killing 14 civilians (13 at the scene, one died later) and wounding others. Boosts the IRA.
1972 May: the Official IRA declares an indefinite ceasefire, contributing to new members for the Provisional IRA.
Early 1970s: major political realignments of unionist and nationalistparliamentary politics and political parties. (Ulster Unionist Party fractures; 1970 Alliance Party of Northern Ireland formed by those against violence; 1971 Democratic Unionist Party formed by Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal; 1972 unionist pressure group the Ulster Vanguard, supported by loyalist paramilitaries, is formed. On the nationalist side the Nationalist Party declines and in 1970 the Social Democratic and Labour Party is formed in its place by moderate Catholics.) Violent republican and loyalist paramilitary activity.
1972 March: British PM (Conservative) Edward Heath imposes Direct Rule from Westminster, proroguing the Stormont parliament.
1972: ‘special category’ status granted to paramilitary prisoners, allowing them to wear civilian clothes and have more visits etc.
1973 December: talks held in Sunningdale in England with the British government, the UUP, the SDLP, the APNI and the Irish government, to try to establish a Northern Ireland Assembly elected by proportional representation (effectively unionist and nationalist power-sharing).
1974: new power-sharing Assembly is attempted but the United Ulster Unionist Council rejects the Sunningdale proposals and another UUP leader (Faulkner) is forced to resign.
1974 May: the Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC), a new loyalist group with involvement of the UDA and UVF, calls a general strike which paralyses Northern Ireland. The Assembly collapses and administration of Northern Ireland reverts to the Secretary of State and Direct Rule from Westminster.
1974: Prevention of Terrorism Act brought in after the PIRA bombs in Birmingham in which 21 people died.
1975: PIRA ceasefire for much of the year and failed talks between the British government and Provisional Sinn Féin. Renewed violence.
1975 onwards: political stalemate and long term armed conflict. British government adopts policy of criminalization,redefining the problem of Northern Ireland as one of criminal activity rather than political or constitutional struggle and refusing to call events in the region a war. (Counter-insurgency measures: non-jury, single-judge ‘Diplock courts’; RUC interrogations and confessions with allegations of torture and inhumane treatment; undercover operations; the use of informers.)
1976 March: withdrawal of ‘special category’ status from paramilitary prisoners.
1976 September: beginning of the ‘blanket protest’ in response to the new prison rules.
1978: beginning of prison protest known to republicans as the ‘no-wash protest’ and to the authorities as the ‘dirty protest’. (Outside the prisons republicans attack prison officers, killing 18 between 1976 and 1980.)
1980 October-December: first prison hunger strike (both male and female prisoners).
1981 March-December: second prison hunger strike (male prisoners only), resulting in the deaths of 10 men. Concessions given after the end of the strike came close to the five demands of the prisoners but avoided the term ‘political status’. PM Margaret Thatcher’s management of the hunger strikes attracted worldwide criticism. The hunger strikes mobilized support for republicanism like nothing else since the civil rights movement. Hunger striker Bobby Sands elected as an MP to Westminster before his death; two other prisoners were elected to the Irish Dáil.
End of 1981 onwards: Sinn Féin adopts the ‘ballot box and Armalite’ strategy.
1981/82: ‘supergrass trials’ where mass arrests were made and dubious trials held on information given to the RUC by informers promised immunity from prosecution, short sentences or financial inducements.
1985 November: British and Irish governments sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Total unionist opposition; all 15 unionist MPs resign their seats, mass demonstrations are held, and March 1986 ‘Day of Action’ shuts down much of Northern Ireland’s commerce and industry. Rioting in Protestant areas of Belfast and loyalist snipers attack the RUC. Wider anti-Agreement unionist civil disobedience campaign follows.
1988: open talks betweenthe SDLP and Sinn Féin, then secret talks between John Hume (SDLP) and Gerry Adams (SF) in subsequent years. These talks are generally seen as the beginning of the peace process.
1990: speech by the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Peter Brooke, stating that Britain had ‘no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland’.
1991-92 Brooke-Mayhew inter-party talks involved the British and Irish governments and the four main Northern Ireland constitutional parties (UUP, DUP, SDLP and APNI). No major progress.
Early 1990s: secret communications between the British government and republicans go on for about three years.
1993 December:Downing Street Declaration (Joint Declaration on Peace). British and Irish governments statethey want to see peace established by agreement among all the people inhabiting the island, which could include a united Ireland, provided that was consented to in referenda in both the north and south. Britain also reiterates Brooke’s 1990 statement.
1994 August: first PIRA ceasefire (indefinite).
1994 October: loyalist ceasefire (UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commandos).
1994-95: decommissioning of PIRA weapons as a precondition for peace talks is a major contentious issue.
1995 February: British/Irish Framework Documents on Northern Ireland are published, outlining some initial proposals for a political settlement.
1996 January: Mitchell Report on arms decommissioning (headed by US Senator George Mitchell) concludes that decommissioning of paramilitary weapons should take place during (rather than before or after) all-party talks (twin-track process). Most unionists are strongly opposed to this. Twin-track talks begin with SDLP, Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), and Ulster Democratic Party (UDP). UUP and DUP choose not to be involved and Sinn Féin is not permitted in.
1996 February: PIRA ends its ceasefire because Sinn Féin is excluded from the peace talks by John Major’s Conservative government, and explodes the Canary Wharf bomb in London.
1996 May: elections to a Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue are held to determine who will take part in all-party peace negotiations.
1996 June: initial talks then multi-party negotiations are held at Stomont but Sinn Féin is still excluded.PIRA bomb in Manchester.
1996 July: serious violence surrounds the annual Drumcree march by the Orange Order in Portadown. Continuity Irish Republican Army launches a car bomb attack in Enniskillen. A committee to review issues relating to contentious parades/marches is announced.
1997 May: in the general elections a Labour Government is elected under PM Tony Blair.
1997 June: Stormont peace talks resume.
1997 July: DUP and United Kingdom Unionist Party (UKUP) withdraw from the talks over decommissioning issues. PIRA renews its ceasefire. Serious violence again surrounds the Drumcree Orange Order parade.