Errr no? The division of Ireland was because the Catholic population (that is to say the majority of the irish population) was treated as second class citizens by the rulings Protestants (manly -at that point descendent of- English and Scots who immigrated to Ireland -- and by the way Ireland was considered as a british colony not a full and equal member of the UK).
Anyway sorry for the long parenthesis but my point is that you can't say there wasn't a good reason why they wanted independence.
And the division was also because the protestant did not want to become the minority after everything they and mostly their ancestors did (since Ireland was nominally part of the UK, the protestants were the majority despite being a minority on the island itself) and since a lot of them lived in the north-east part of the island, these managed to get their way and these county stayed in the UK. Of course the local Catholic were not asked their opinion and continued to be treated as second class citizens for a while.
So yeah, it was less about the south's imperial claim that the north was its property and more about the whole island wanting independence and the protestant wanting to stay in the UK, ending up in a compromise in which most of the island got its independence and a few county stayed in the UK, except that only a bit more that half of the population of these counties was happy about it (but the rest wasn't asked their opinion, so everything's fine, right?)
Now I don't actually live there, and I to young to have been alive at that time, and I know that I'm simplifying the issue despite the very long thing I just wrote but
TL;DR: Yes there are criticism to make, and on both sides, and yes Irish terrorism was definitely a thing, but claiming that the British were British were poor innocent victims of the imperialist Irish is just so blatantly false. If you don't believe me, just look up Cromwell.
Ps: Also (and really no offence meant, I'm just curious) but why "imperial claim" ? Ireland has never had anything resembling an empire, as far as I know, so, why imperial? That really sound like a random criticism to me?
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@stevep59
Errr no? The division of Ireland was because the Catholic population (that is to say the majority of the irish population) was treated as second class citizens by the rulings Protestants (manly -at that point descendent of- English and Scots who immigrated to Ireland -- and by the way Ireland was considered as a british colony not a full and equal member of the UK).
Anyway sorry for the long parenthesis but my point is that you can't say there wasn't a good reason why they wanted independence.
And the division was also because the protestant did not want to become the minority after everything they and mostly their ancestors did (since Ireland was nominally part of the UK, the protestants were the majority despite being a minority on the island itself) and since a lot of them lived in the north-east part of the island, these managed to get their way and these county stayed in the UK. Of course the local Catholic were not asked their opinion and continued to be treated as second class citizens for a while.
So yeah, it was less about the south's imperial claim that the north was its property and more about the whole island wanting independence and the protestant wanting to stay in the UK, ending up in a compromise in which most of the island got its independence and a few county stayed in the UK, except that only a bit more that half of the population of these counties was happy about it (but the rest wasn't asked their opinion, so everything's fine, right?)
Now I don't actually live there, and I to young to have been alive at that time, and I know that I'm simplifying the issue despite the very long thing I just wrote but
TL;DR: Yes there are criticism to make, and on both sides, and yes Irish terrorism was definitely a thing, but claiming that the British were British were poor innocent victims of the imperialist Irish is just so blatantly false. If you don't believe me, just look up Cromwell.
Ps: Also (and really no offence meant, I'm just curious) but why "imperial claim" ? Ireland has never had anything resembling an empire, as far as I know, so, why imperial? That really sound like a random criticism to me?