IRELAND CHAPTER 7

Chapter 7:

By 1900 life was a little better for Catholics in Ireland. They could have land, they could vote and speak in parliament, they had Catholics schools and churches. But most Catholics were poor, and every year, thousand of them went to America or Britain to look for work.

Catholics Irish Nacionalists Irish Nacionalists wanted to end the Act of the Union. They wanted an Irish Parliament to decide about things in Ireland. But the Protestants did not want to give it to them.

In 1914, the British government decided to give Ireland an Irish Parliament. ''Ireland will still belong to Britain'', they say. ''But the Irish Parliament will decide on Irish things'', like Irish schools, roads, and police. Most Irish Nacionalists were happy about this, but the Protestants Unionists were angry.

Most Protestant lived in Northern Ireland near Belfast. This part of Ireland is called Ulster. Soon the Protestand Unionist Army began marching throught the streets of Belfast with their leader, Sir Edwadr Carson. They wanted to keep the act of union. Ulster will fight, they said, and Ulster will be right!.

The British government did not know what to do. They wanted to give Ireland a Parliament, but they did not want to fight the Unionistst. But then, in 1914 the First World War started. Most of the Protestant Unionists, and many thousands of Irish Catholics, went with the British army to fight Germany.

But many Irish Nacionalists stayed in Ireland. We don’t want to fight the Germans, they said. We want the British to leave Ireland. Perhaps the Germans can help us.

In 1916 a group of Irish Nacionalists decided to fight for a free Ireland. They were interested in Irish music, Irish history, the Irish language, and tried to bring them to Ireland in a German ship. Their leader, Patrick Pears, wanted much more than an Irish Parliament. He wanted Ireland to be free from Britain.

On Easter Monday 1916, Pears and his men went into the Post Office, in the middle of Dublin. Pearse walked to the door. Irishmen and Irishwomen, he said. Ireland belongs to the Irish people! Today Ireland is a free country!

But the British did not agree. For six long days there was a battle in Dublin, and many men died. After the battle, the government said that Pearse and fourteen other important men had to die, and they died in prison. Nearly two thousand other Sinn Fein men went to prison.

Easter Monday 1916 was a very important day in Irish history. After that day everything was different. In his poem Easter 1916 the Irish writer William Butler Yeats wrote:

All changed, changed utterly.

A terrible beauty is born

In 1919 Sinn Fein fought the British again. The Sinn Fein army was called the Irish Republican Army, or IRA. From 1919 to 1921

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