Ask A Historian

[CapnAwesome]

I don't know how much an historian can answer this but do you think the IRA was motivated primarily by Catholicism or by a sense or by republicanism and rebellion against the UK monarchy/"imperialism"?

So it's an interesting question. I think that the answer is both were important. Catholicism acted more as a way to divide Northern Ireland into two groups. Even though the protestants were historically immigrants from Scotland and England in the 1600s and decended from them. That's when they were upper class landowners where as the Catholics were stripped of their land and rights mostly. Fast forward a few centuries to the IRA and there were actually little differences between a working class protestant and Catholic. That's when religion was just a divider. I don't think that the fact they are Catholic specifically is important. They could have been anything religious and the IRA would have been a similar situation. That's just my opinion.