For 50 years Unionists upheld a violent one party system of government which excluded the Nationalist/Republican section of the community from power and equality. For 50 years Unionists practiced discrimination and gerrymander to exclude Nationalists. This unjust system of government eventually resulted in a peaceful rebellion in 1968-69. This popular rebellion was viciously suppressed and led to a violent reaction by and on behalf of the oppressed working class people in the six counties. This popular rebellion had widespread support among the poor and oppressed in the northeast of Ireland and supporters of Irish freedom throughout the world.
Many of the Irish abroad were descendants of those forced to leave Ireland during the great Starvation in the 1840s.They had not forgotten how their ancestors suffered as a result of British rule in Ireland.
If the British had not invaded and colonised the island of Ireland there would have been no armed rebellions. If there had not been Partition and 50 years of Unionist misrule there would have been no IRA, there would have been no Bloody Sunday or Bloody Friday, no Kingsmills or Enniskillen.
It was no surprise that the years of systematic oppression and discrimination against a section of the population led to rebellion and a campaign for liberation from a vicious political and military regime.
Neither the British nor the Unionists can claim the high moral ground. By their violent and unjust system of governing in Ireland they were primarily responsible for the bloodshed when they opposed the Civil Rights movement and refused to grant basic reforms.
The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 offered all of the citizens a way out of the violent system established in 1920 and the possibility of creating a new Ireland based on equality and democratic principles.
Let us also never forget the other major oppressor which was and still is the Catholic Church!