Well done lads

the Revolutionary war was one of the least violent wars in American history. do your research

It was still a war. Violence is violence, that was all I was saying

As an Irishman who enjoys nothing more than Irish history I can say there was a lot of blood. We often couldn't use politics and petitioning because we weren't given the right to education, to vote, to hold office or other things similar for a large portion of those 900 years. We have had many uprisings (1798 for example), all of which were filled with bloodshed. We can look to the famine as being a part of the 900 year struggle too, because there was enough grain and other food sources in Ireland for the people to survive on but the English sold it off and shipped it to their troops. 1916, probably the biggest turning point in our recent history was entirely that way because the leaders of the Easter Rising were executed, this swayed public opinion to the nationalists. A couple years later we had our war for independence (in the aptly named "Irish War of Independence") --cont

Cont- this war saw the Brits send over soldiers known as the "Black and Tans", essentially barbarians who would shoot a rifle at anything (example. Bloody Sunday (the first one, at croke park)). After we won that war we had a civil war in which we were fighting our own countrymen over wether we should sign the Anglo-Irish treaty or not (essentially giving us 26 out of 32 counties back). Things went quiet for a bit after that, what with WWII and such (there were some attacks and such but not many), then we move to 1969 and the Troubles began. Basically Catholics were being treated terribly again in the north, they were kicked out of their homes, often refused a vote, refused work and generally treated as second class citizens, eventually the people had had enough of being treated as second class citizens in their own country. They had riots, they couldn't show their intentions through political means as the English government controlled the media and voting. Cont--

Cont- they had to take up arms. Originally they took up arms only to protect their own communities from death squads and such. But when the English government sent in the British Army (to "protect" the oppressed Catholics) and these soldiers began to collaborate with the death squads and openly attack civilians (see plastic bullets) and open fire on civilian peaceful marches (Bloody Sunday) the Irish knew they had to fight back. The troubles raged on for 3 decades. In there was the 1981 hunger strike (which inspired Nelson Mandela) and such. It was a long and bloody war. So to summarise there had been times when we could use peaceful means (eg. Parnell or even today) but for the most part we have had to fall back on armed force in our fight. Thankfully we are closer than ever before now, we now can vote, and are treated fairly.

Sorry I just realised how long that is.. You don't have to bother reading it all :P