Talk:The Troubles

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parity of esteem

"parity of esteem" links to an article describing a medical principal, and seems completely unrelated to its usage here. Perhaps someone with more knowledge on this could investigate? 104.158.84.15 (talk) 01:03, 24 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Unidentified irish mural.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:37, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

End of the conflict and Drumcree

Most claim that The Troubles ended with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, however I would like to point out that violence, rioting and armed attacks continued even after the Belfast agreement had been signed by all parties. This is best evidenced by the Omagh bombing of mid 1998, but other examples include protests and rioting by unionists and loyalists in many parts of the region, intense negotioations over the route of the Aprentice Boys parade in Derry between marchers and Bogsiders were in a stalemate for some time with people rioting against the police,[1] and in Portadown the conflict between the Orange Order and their protestant supporters versus the Catholic Residents of Garvaghy Road continued, as they insisted to pass through their road as part of their traditional Orange walk.(for example, one month after the GFA:[2] In this case, clashes between Catholics, Protestants and Police continued as usual until finally subsiding in 2001, when one of the last Troubles-related sectarian killings took place in a town in Northern Northern Ireland (pun intended). My question is, should the conflict be described as ending in the late 1990s or even in 2000 or 2001? Much of the fighting over Drumcree continued on as usual, and press archives from after 1998 talk about the peace process as being 'stalled'. (such as in the description of this AP archive video on YouTube:[3]) GabMen20 (talk) 16:00, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ethno-nationalist

I'm new to this page and I presume this has been discussed before but the opening sentence "The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict" is kind of strange and too definitive. The two footnotes that include a quote say the Troubles were rooted in ethno-nationalist conflict, not that it was "an ethno-nationalist conflict". Surely the Troubles were lots of things: a sectarian conflict would be the most common designation;[4] others see it as an anti-colonial struggle or conversely as a counter-insurgency.[5] One historian captures this polysemy well: Due to its complicated backstory, a fierce debate exists over the semantics of the Troubles: finding a label for such a complicated period has proved difficult. Was it a war of decolonisation? A Civil Rights Movement? A clash of terrorist campaigns? A sectarian feud? A counterinsurgency operation? Each categorisation for the conflict can be legitimately argued, and the reality is that the Troubles cannot be boiled down to any one simple explanation. In order to understand this great period of social upheaval, we must acknowledge that each of these categories provide useful analytical frameworks for analysing the troubles, but on their own, none are sufficient. This article will analyse the justifications for understanding the Troubles as a sectarian feud, a civil rights movement and an insurgency/counterinsurgency campaign.[6] Would anyone object to editing to something echoing that? BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:27, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the second paragraph does this fine. I think the right thing to do is just say "a conflict" in the opening sentence, and add the word "ethno-nationalist" with these footnotes to the first sentence of the second para. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:32, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think your concern is laudable, though what strikes me is none of the scholarship you've graciously collated for us would seem to contradict the characterization as ethno-nationalist. Ethnicity and nationality are typically very complicated and especially in the 20th century cannot be considered a complete concept without considering ethnogenesis via e.g. anticolonial liberation struggle and sectarian feuding. That is to say, I think the characterization is actually the one that best respects the conflict's polyvalency, as opposed to being overly definitive. Remsense 🌈 论 21:36, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would it not be more accurate to at least acknowledge the anti-colonial nature of the conflict as well in the first sentence? I think it is disingenuous to ignore the negative implications of the term "ethno-nationalist" in modern Western discourse. Describing the conflict in only that way in the first sentence definitively outlines a particular stance being taken in the article. 2601:602:8682:EE00:2161:CCC8:EF17:9134 (talk) 21:02, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The idea that you can describe a war in completely "neutral" and "objective" terms is naive. Calling it an anti-colonial conflict is also taking a stance, likely in favor of the Nationalist cause ;) 199.204.58.67 (talk) 01:19, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]