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Organisations
If you are interested in the Northern Ireland Conflict, and obvious you are, you might have noticed that it can be hard to get a grip on the wide variety of Nationalist and Republican, Unionist and Loyalist organisations and parties, pressure groups and British army and intelligence services. You will find abbreviations everywhere, but a clear description is rare.
The organisations we describe are just a selection of all the numerous organisations involved in the Northern Ireland Conflict. It is nearly impossible to describe them all.
Because many paramilitary movements and political parties are interwoven an understanding of the differences can help to understand the distrust and ponderous negotiations.
A very common, but highly inappropriate, assignment of the parties in Northern Ireland is strictly based on religion. Apart from a small percentage of Hindus and Muslims there are just two religions with rhyme or reason: Catholicism (in 2001 approximately 44% of the population) and Protestantism (approximately 53%), which includes the Church of Ireland and Presbyterians.
Most Catholics will refer to themselves as Irishman, while Protestants will prefer Ulsterman or British. Although not every Catholic is baptised Pat and not every Protestant boy is named William as suggested in the song The Orange and the Green, it is quite easy to distinct Catholics and Protestants. The surname will reveal the religious descent in most cases. When the name is not decisive the address might. A Patrick living at the Shankill Road in Belfast is, despite his name, definitely a Protestant, while changes are that William from Crossmaglen is a Catholic.
It is tempting to use the simple religion-based distinction and in daily life in Northern Ireland it is used. However, there is no political party nor a paramilitary organisation using the terms Catholic or Protestant in its name. Instead you will find a lot of Republicans, Nationalists, Loyalists and Unionists and the definitions of these terms on Ireland may alter from the ordinary. So first of all we have to define the terms Nationalist and Republican, and Unionist and Loyalist.