Abstract
The Northern Irish “Troubles” refers to the bloody 30-year conflict, from 1968 to 1998, largely centered in Belfast between the Loyalist who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of Great Britain and the Republicans who wanted independence. The extremely violent conflict took more than 3,600 lives, resulted in more than 40,000 serious injuries, and deeply affected almost every person in Northern Ireland. The violence occurred almost daily, right in the city streets. Of particular note is the extent to which Northern Irish youth were involved in the struggle and the degree of the sacrifice many made for the respective causes. This study seeks to gain insight into the reasons for this element of this unique conflict.Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (linked here). By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are available for wide dissemination at no cost to readers, with proper attribution (acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal), in educational and other non-commercial settings. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.
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