The Troubles (Giovinezza)

The Troubles (Irish: Na Trioblóidí) was an ethno-nationalist conflict in Ireland during the mid to late 20th century. It is sometimes described internationally as a "guerrilla war" or "low-level war". The name refers to the thirty-year period of violence between the Irish government and unionist Ulster militias between 1949 and the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1978. The conflict was primarily political and fueled by historical events, specifically the agreement between the United Kingdom and Ireland for the transfer of Ulster to the Irish state in exchange for aiding the Allies in the Second World War. The conflict also had an ethnic or sectarian dimension to it, but was not a religious conflict.

Historically, the majority-Protestant population of Northern Ireland were unionists who considered themselves British and wanted to remain in the United Kingdom. On the flip side, Irish nationalists, who were predominantly Catholic, campaigned for the reunification of the island under the Irish tricolour. After the Belfast Riots of 1949 and the increasing violence against Catholic citizens in the north, the Irish Defense Forces were deployed in Belfast and the Irish Volunteer Army (IVA), a paramilitary organization, was set up in Ulster to provide protection for Irish Catholics in the north. In opposition to the IVA and the IDF were the unionist paramilitaries such as the Ulter Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA).