In Northern Ireland, also called Ulster, there are two major groups of community-the Protestants and the Catholics. The Protestants make up the majority of the population of Northern Ireland and they want to remain under British rule as a part of the United Kingdom. On the other hand the Catholics, who were often treated unequally by the Protestants, want a united island of Ireland that is ruled by a government in Dublin. The conflict between the Irish and the British goes back to 12th century when the English defeated the Irish. After this defeat, for seven hundred years the English maintained the rule of

(Foley). The attacks also spread to continental Europe, where British military personnel and their families were the main targets. These actions led to violent responses by Protestant terrorist groups. Paul Arthur believes that none of attacks of IRA were mindless. He says that: "So, targets were very carefully specified. What the IRA tried to do for the most part and what they believed they were doing was that they were not trying to harm the local community. Now, that was part of their mythology. If they killed a Protestant, they would argue that it was not a Protestant they were killing, but it was a member of the security forces who happened to be a Protestant." But of course, these do not prove whether the actions of Irish Republican Army were acceptable or not.

January 30, 1972 is known as "Bloody Sunday" in the history and it's a turning point for the Catholic community. It is the event that occurred when thousands of Catholic people were on the streets for protest and the British troopers shot 14 of them although they were unarmed. Alexander Macleod mentions the importance of this event for the Irish people as: "Last weekend, an estimated 20,000 Catholics in Londonderry, Northern Ireland's second largest city, paraded to commemorate their fourteen unarmed co-religionists killed in the shooting. Instead of laying passions to rest, as the British government had hoped, the march has fueled demands for a new investigation into why the troops opened fire and who was responsible for the killings." This was the end of the British authority in Northern Ireland and it was the first time that Britain had taken away power from the Protestant population and from their political leaders. (Arthur) But Irish Republican Army did not stop its actions because they had not succeeded their objective yet. Sinn Fein was the political wing of IRA. The words are Gaelic and it means "ourselves alone". Paul Arthur explains the meaning of this name in this way: "They mean that we can go and achieve our own freedom, we don't need the help of anyone else do it, but that we have to be a free-standing nation among the nations of the world, and therefore the only answer is Irish unity." Besides, Boyce clarifies Irish nationalism in this way: "The chief characteristics of nationalism in Ireland have been race, religion, and a strong sense of territory unity and integrity; and in all its modes it

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