Ireland is not part of the UK, but why not? A simple question, but a difficult answer.
In 1169 the English invaded Ireland and conquered two-thirds of the island. In the 1570s Ireland was fully conquered and governed by the English. Protestant settlers from England and Scotland were sent by the English king to occupy the lands formerly possessed by the Irish Catholics. The English also introduced the ‘Penal Laws’ which gave more rights to Protestants and less rights to Catholics. Of course, the Irish weren’t happy and there were rebellions in 1569, 1579 and 1594 to free themselves from the English. All without success.
Protestants gained even more rights after the military success of the Dutch Stadtholder William III in 1690. The Battle of the Boyne (the victory of William III over a Catholic army) is up to this day celebrated in Northern-Ireland by Protestants. This caused more problems with the Catholic population and are still present in modern-day Northern-Ireland.
Disaster struck the Irish in the year 1845. The disaster called the ‘Great Potato Famine’ was a period of disease, crop failure and mass starvation. The English government did almost nothing to help the Irish. About one million people died and another one million left Ireland for America. Because the English government did nothing to help the Irish many were angry and the unrest in Ireland started again.
Many Irish wanted to have their own parliament in Dublin. This group is called the Home Rule movement who wanted self-governance but didn’t want to leave the UK. Most Catholics and a small group of Protestants wanted Home Rule, but the majority of the Protestants didn’t want to give the Catholics more rights. Home Rule was eventually put on hold because of the start of the First World War.
Many Irish wanted independence. On Easter Monday 24 April 1916 rebel leaders declared independence for the Irish Republic. But within a month after the Easter Rising (as the rebellion was called) leaders were executed by the British army. The Irish were furious. There came a civil war between Irish who wanted to remain part of Ireland and those who wanted to be independent. Only in 1922 Ireland became an independent country.
(Source: Bartlett, T. (2016) ‘Ireland: A History’, Cambridge: University Press)