This website will seek a deeper understanding of the Troubles by exploring important elements of the various factions’ ideology and actions.
Unfortunately the Troubles was not a straightforward affair. It was not merely the radical remnants of Irish Republicans coming up from the South, and committing terrorist acts with the goal of uniting all of Ireland into one independent state, with the British Army being sent in to try and stop and mitigate these violent actions. To be frank and fair, I had thought something to this effect to be the case for quite a long time. I also understood that Northern Ireland’s predominantly Protestant population was the reason it was split from the Republic and stayed in the UK, and that, historically, the Protestant English had despised the Catholic Irish, but I had not fully registered the continuation of Sectarianism (the mutual animosity between Catholic and Protestants in Ireland) into the late 20th century, nor had I fully considered how there may have been Northern Irish people who were IRA members, and I had certainly never considered the possibility of Loyalist/Unionist Terrorist groups. I was aware of the multiple schisms in the IRA, but I was also unaware of how they effectively all happened during and because of the Troubles. And there is so much more, on and on, that I have learned through researching and writing out the pages of this website.
The reality is that the Troubles were a horrible Sectarian and Nationalistic mess, and almost a kind of Civil War, pitting Northern Ireland’s Protestant and Catholic populations against eachother, and with controversial acts committed by both. The Security Forces (the British Army and the RUC, or Royal Ulster Constabulary; I hope you like acronyms by the way because nearly every faction but the British Army has one) where controversial for taking sectarian actions themselves, on the Protestant Side, even though they did label Unionists paramilitaries as terrorist organizations (which they were) and barred the Orange Men from parading through Catholic neighborhoods in the late 90’s (something that is discussed in particular on this site). All in all, it is a dense, and complex conflict, and hopefully, this site will render more understandable that depth and complexity, and dive into some of its more interesting rabbit holes.
Originally this site was supposed to prominently feature and analyze pictorial sources as well, however, time constraints and increasing focus on particular aspects changed that plan over time. The vast majority of pictures being behind a pay wall also didn’t help. In the future it would be nice to come back and add sections about pictorial sources to the site, but it is not within my current time constraints unfortunately.