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Gifts from The Morning Star
A century of sectarianism — but the end is in sight
NICK WRIGHT assesses the fortunes of the ‘British’ statelet in the North of Ireland as unionism’s descent approaches terminal velocity
BREAKDOWN: Loyalist rioting on the Shankill Road earlier this year

TODAY is the centenary of the partition of Ireland. This brutal act was accompanied — as became routine with Britain’s slow-burn crisis of imperial rule as its colonial subjects sought national liberation — with great violence.

How Ireland became a colony of the British crown is a story of savagery and theft. The Plantation of Ulster — the most Gaelic part of the island — was carried out in the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James I (VI of Scotland), and the working out of this tragedy of avarice has reached the present crisis in the reign of the second Elizabeth.

The new settlers, who largely forced the existing occupants from their land, were mostly required to be English-speaking, Protestant and loyal to the crown. The invasion was not confined to the Northern province of Ulster but it was in this part of the Irish mainland where it was most thoroughly instituted by the occupation authorities.

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