The Troubles

The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the late 1960s to 1998, also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict. It is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although centred in Northern Ireland, violence at times spilled into the Republic of Ireland, England and mainland Europe. The conflict arose from political and nationalistic disputes with a strong ethnic and sectarian dimension: unionists and loyalists, mostly Ulster Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom, while Irish nationalists and republicans, mostly Irish Catholics, wanted it to join a united Ireland. Despite the division between Protestants and Catholics, it was not a religious war.