->''"Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, [[MovingTheGoalposts the Irish secretly changed the Question]]..."''
-->-- '''1066 And All That'''

->''"[[BlackComedy Roasted, baked, or fried?]]"''
-->-- '''[[Literature/AModestProposal Jonathan Swift]]'''

[[quoteright:250:[[Magazine/{{Punch}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Really_Resized_9038.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:250:[[TheSimpsons A Completely Unbiased Comparison.]]]]

Ever-so vaguely: "What do we, 'the British', do about 'Ireland' and 'the Irish'?"

Many modern countries were once British protectorates, or administered by Britain as part of her Empire proper. Ireland is unique in actually having been an integrated ''part'' of the United Kingdom, in the same way Poland was once divided up between and integrated into Prussia, Austria and Russia. Like in Poland, proto-nationalism in Ireland never quite died in spite of this, mostly due to the sentiments of the literate elite who composed the vanguard of nationalism as we know it today in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Depending on how you consider it The Irish Question might cover the whole of Irish-British relations from ([well] before) the incomplete Norman Conquest during the TheMiddleAges to the present day. Usually, however, it refers to the period between 1801 and 1922 when Ireland was formally a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Wales had long-since been conquered and pacified by the English when the country was formally integrated into England and and its ruling elite into English society in 1536. England and Scotland later, by mutual agreement, formed the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 - to the consternation of the Highland-Scots who benefitted little from the economic boom which followed. The United Kingdom had had the Kingdom of Ireland well and truly under its own thumb for nearly a century by the time the Irish Parliament voted to join the union and its members went to sit at the National Parliament at Westminster, like everyone else.

Given the nature of the 'United Kingdom,' it's natural to ask why there was not a Cornish Question, or a Welsh Question, or a Scottish Question. The answer is simple, really; these peoples had very little sense of nationalism as we know it today and shared a broad non-Catholic allegiance with each other by the time of the Union of England and Scotland in 1707. Scotland was strongly Calvinist, and England (inc. Wales and Cornwall) was broadly Anglican. Most people in Ireland were, on the other hand, Catholic. [[ForWantOfANail This does make one wonder how British and Irish history would have been different had a certain King of England not been so eager for a divorce]].

As senses of national identity developed many Catholics in Ireland became Irish Nationalists -- wanting independence or at least autonomy in running their own local government rather than sitting at Westminster. Scottish Protestant settlers in Ireland formed the core of those people in Ireland who came to identify more with 'Britain' and British nationalism, most of these living in the areas around Ulster. That their sympathies would be such was deliberate, as they had been sent to settle for this very purpose; that they happened to live in Ulster was more a question of its proximity to Scotland. Dublin had a long history of English settlement by this time, and was a broadly Anglican area. Over time, the Protestant community in and around Dublin came to integrate more with Irish culture than their Ulster counterparts,[[note]]For instance, JonathanSwift, an Anglican born in Dublin but thoroughly English by ancestry, defended Ireland as early as the 1690s[[/note]] whose more stand-offish faith led them along much more firmer religious and eventually nationalist lines.

Broadly, most of those who wished for Irish independence were Catholic, and equally broadly those who supported the union of Ireland with England and Scotland ("unionists") were Protestants. Exceptions abounded.

The situation was soured by an undeniable streak of anti-Irish feeling in Britain [[hottip:*: Continuing sixteenth-century policies of identifying Catholicism with nasty evil foreigners, during the penal era anti-Catholicism was reflected in government policy, by Catholics forbidden to vote, hold public offices, or participate in civil society many other ways. It has been argued that the excommunication of Elizabeth in 1570 provided the ideal opportunity for the Cecil administration to implement its abiding achievement: the propagation of the idea it was impossible to be a Catholic and a good Englishman. Against the historical backdrop of Armada, Gunpowder Plot, Civil War, the flight of James II, Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, and almost constant war with France, it is easy to see how anti-Catholic, anti-foreign (specifically, Spanish and of course French) feeling was easily sustained in the nation's consciousness. In that context, vehement anti-Catholicism was found in both the mainstream press and satirical journals. Rome was Babylon, and the Pope its Whore: he was the Scarlet Lady, the Antichrist, whose followers were enslaved in his service, and who would cheerfully murder all good Protestants in their beds, given the chance.]]. The Irish were despised (and often feared) for their Catholicism, poverty and perceived recourse to violence. The Irish were regularly mocked in British newspapers and magazines, portrayed as shambling grotesque ape-like thugs in political cartoons - see the picture on this page. Even the better-minded Britons tended to view the Irish as being unfit to govern themselves. This view changed over the course of the 19th century, as anti-Irish rancour faded and by the late 1880s had largely died down.

On the Irish side, hostility was worsened by a truly horrific [[IrishPotatoFamine famine in Ireland]] in the late 1840s, in which over a million people died and many more were forced to emigrate. Many Irish people believed and still do that it was caused by at best stupidity and at worst deliberate malice on the part of the British government, who preferred starvation in Ireland to the chaos in Britain that would result if Ireland stopped exporting food to industrial towns.[[hottip:*:It should be noted that the worst of the famine could have been avoided altogether if there had been even a basic system of crop rotation in Ireland, or the Irish themselves grew more than one variety of potato. Not a case of ScienceMarchesOn as both the importance of crop rotation and crop variety had been a staple of sound agricultural practice for centuries already. This point gets glossed over a lot but is important to know. The reason for this is because at the time of the great Potato famine most were tenant farmers who could not afford to feed their families any other way.]]. A policy often pointed to is the Corn Law forbidding Irish farmers from growing this crop and competing with English ones. They then turned to potatoes, which failed, and the famine struck.

Note that, until 1916, most Irish nationalists were ''not'' republican; most envisaged even a mostly independent Ireland being ruled by [[BritishRoyalFamily the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha]] and Canada was often cited as a model for Ireland. Both [[QueenVicky Queen Victoria]] and [[TheEdwardianAge Edward VII]] were popular and received enthusiastic welcomes on visits to Ireland. Indeed, Victoria had a particular personal fondness for Ireland, often holidaying in Kerry. The full break only came later on when things had gotten worse.

There were many political attempts to reconcile Ireland into a Home Rule arrangement that would (like the current devolution of Scotland and Wales) keep Ireland in the UK. The first attempt was shot down. The second attempt passed through the House of Commons but did not make it through the House of Lords. Finally, the third attempt passed through both Houses and even received Royal Assent, but its implementation was delayed by the onset of WorldWarOne. In 1916, during the war, a couple of hundred radicals staged an armed uprising on Easter Monday in Dublin, and were almost all killed by the army. The public took a dim view of the government's heavy-handed treatment of the rebels, ranging from bewilderment to outright contempt, considering it something of a betrayal. However, there was general shock and outspoken disapproval at the brutal (by British standards) treatment of the dozens of captured rebels and a Draconian policy of repression to cut down on further would-be-martyrs.

The continued 'revival' of neo-Gaelic culture, and general war-wariness, increased popular support for revolutionary nationalist groups. This was dramatically exacerbated in 1918 when - with the country's manpower reserves exhausted - the possibility of extending the 1916 Conscription Act to Ireland was contemplated by the Cabinet. This was staunchly opposed by many within Ireland, and [[EnemyMine both the Unionist and Nationalist parties condemned the proposal]]. Soon afterwards the Irish Parliamentary Party (moderate nationalists who supported Home Rule) was replaced by Sinn Fein as the main political force in Ireland. Assassinations of officials and acts of violence against and murders of 'pro-English' citizens increased exponentially, and resulted in increasingly heavy-handed government repression with many dozens of terrorists being beaten, arrested, and sentenced to gaol. The decision to recruit WWI veterans to serve as armed policemen (the 'Black and Tans') in particular proved to be a bad move, as the screening process was minimal - many of those who signed up were more often than not suffering from shell-shock or [[LovesTheSoundOfScreaming ''enjoyed'' killing people too much to give up on war.]]

Hundreds died in the cycle of terrorism and (increasingly lethal) repression that followed until the [[TheIrishRevolution Irish War of Independence]] was concluded with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. The Irish Free State was made independent, while Northern Ireland remained British. Following this some Free Irish republican nationalists disagreed with the terms of the Treaty, and there followed a brief and bitter civil war [[{{Irony}} that killed more than The War For Independence]]. The war still [[UsefulNotes/IrishPoliticalSystem Irish politics to this day]]--the two major parties of contemporary Irish politics, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, are descendants of the Anti- and Pro-Treaty Sinn Fein factions, respectively. The Civil War is the ElephantInTheLivingRoom in Irish culture, and doesn't get mentioned much for fear of causing offence; notable exceptions are Sean O'Casey's play ''Juno and the Paycock'' and the recent Ken Loach Film ''TheWindThatShakesTheBarley''.) The Irish Free State eventually went on to become the current state of Ireland by unilateral declaration in 1949 (but they didn't change the license plates until 1987). For Northern Ireland see TheTroubles.

This area of history has a lot of disagreement; suffice to say ''everyone'' has his or her own view on the subject.

The conventional, conciliatory view is that British people should [[InnocentlyInsensitive bear in mind the people who were imprisoned or died as a result of repression and neglect/mismanagement by British governments]] - an amazing number of Britons seem to think that The UK had no input on Irish history at all and that the Irish are 'just like that' because their governments encourage anti-British sentiment in its schools to strengthen Irish Nationalism. Likewise it is held that Irish people would be much happier, and find dealing with British people much easier, if they could be be more forgiving and less bitter/vindictive about what happened to long-dead people they merely share an island with - an equally amazing number of Irish people will blame (all) Irish problems on Britain[[hottip:*: regardless of where the actual cause or fault may lie, and regardless of the obviousness of said actual cause/fault]]. In certain places there are people still holding grievances [and 'grievances'][[hottip:*: sometimes regarding ''individual people'']] dating back ''centuries'').

British-Irish relations are, after all, important to both countries - and neither a culture of historical ignorance nor one of victimisation and grudge-holding is healthy[[hottip:*: though the latter culture would be an ''excellent'' basis for justifying a 'national' culture of 'Revanchism' in preparation for [[WarOf1812 a War of Irish Liberation/Second Irish Revolution (to seize British/Northern Ireland)]] - or, incidentally, a recipe for future harmony between two very close geographical, economic, and cultural neighbours.

A significant symbolic step towards reconciliation was made in 2011, with Queen Elizabeth II making a state visit to Ireland -- the first visit from a British monarch since King George V's visit in 1911, and the first ever since Ireland gained independence. Although subject to criticism and protest from numerous quarters, the visit was widely regarded as a success and the Queen widely praised, particularly for a speech delivered at a state dinner in which she both acknowledged the regrettable past between the two nations while asserting the significant developments that had been made since then.

Do not confuse with [[ThoseWackyNazis "The Jewish Question"]].
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