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The Irish Anti-Partition League and the political realities of partition, 1945–9

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Brendan Lynn*
Affiliation:
University of Ulster, Magee College

Extract

At the end of the 1960s the outbreak of widespread civil unrest in Northern Ireland forced the authorities in London and Dublin into confronting an issue which had seemingly been settled some time before. The emergence of the Civil Rights movement among the minority community and the reaction of unionist opinion to it had set in motion a series of events that were to raise once again the whole topic of partition. Yet for a short time in the period immediately following the Second World War it looked as if this subject was, to the delight of some and the dismay of others, about to re-emerge. One of the elements behind this development was the establishment by northern nationalists in 1945 of an organisation called the Irish Anti-Partition League (I.A.P.L.). The formation of the I.A.P.L. was significant on a number of grounds.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2005

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References

1 In the text a number of terms are used which may need some explanation. The terms ‘nationalist’ and ‘nationalism’ (lower case) have been used to describe all shades of nationalist opinion in Northern Ireland, irrespective of individual political affiliation, while the term ‘Nationalist’ (upper case) applies specifically to the Nationalist Party or its members. A similar distinction has also been applied to unionist politics: ‘unionist’ and ‘unionism’ (lower case) refers to all shades of unionist opinion, while the term ‘Unionist’ applies specifically to the Unionist Party or its members. The phrase ‘minority community’ refers to the Catholic/nationalist population within Northern Ireland.

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