The Troubles: Conflict over Irish Unification

The year is 1972. The place is the Bogside neighborhood of Derry, Northern Ireland. It’s a cold, uninviting morning in February. 26 unarmed civilians were killed last Sunday for protesting the internment of suspected Irish Republic Army members, and the animosity that Catholics and Irish nationalists have towards the British government is now greater than ever.

Northern Ireland’s tension between crown loyalists and Irish nationalists is not new, but it is not getting any better either. And as the Cold War rages on and Britain assumes more responsibility for Berlin from the recent 4 Power Agreement, working towards a resolution that can please all sides has become an increasingly pressing matter. 

Your task is an important one: to represent the beliefs of your respective faction in order to determine the future of Northern Ireland. Will this mean supporting the actions of the British military to suppress the revolutionaries, or engaging in potentially volatile tactics to rid the vestiges of British occupation and return Northern Ireland to the Republic once and for all? Will the Troubles ever end, or will they grow from the “low-level war” that they currently are into something much more catastrophic?  The answers to these questions are up to the committee, and the eternal fate of the British Isles is in the delegates’ hands.