Big Day in Northern Ireland

It's been slow, but the process continues to move forward for Northern Ireland. (CLICK HERE for the NY Times article and HERE for the BBC.) Today, Ian Paisley (the hard-nosed British loyalist) and Gerry Adams (formerly tied to a terrorist organization) sat down at a table for the first time to discuss power sharing between the two parties. Beginning on May 8th, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein will begin governing the UK province together, with Sinn Fein continuing to press for a united Ireland and the DUP insisting on staying tied to the UK.

In our Irish history class, the wife and I have been learning about how, for hundreds of years, successive kings of England tried to subjugate the Irish through colonization, as well as both legal and religious legislation. (In fact, in 1366 Britain even outlawed Irish people from entering cathedrals in Ireland.) From the mid-12th century on into the early 20th century, this was Ireland's relationship with Britain. It was in 1609 that the Ulster Plantation began in northeastern Ireland under James I. Lands were taken from Catholic Irish landowners and given to Protestant English colonialists.

Given the history of the conflict from an outside objective view, it's fairly easy to see how the UK's occupation of N. Ireland wasn't fair or just to begin with. However, given the situation today in a democratic society, with a small majority of N. Ireland's population preferring to stay connected to the UK, there doesn't seem to be any other realistic option but to allow democracy to run it's course. Obviously, I've simplified things down quite a bit here, but for the readers in the United States, this is the best summary I can offer (minus the bloodshed and the atrocities from both sides).