Keeping Control in IrelandThere are two communities in Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant. In the 1500s, all Irish people were Catholic, but in the late 1500s, English Protestant rulers decided to conquer Ireland. To maintain control they send people to Ireland. This is called plantation. The people who were "planted" were Protestants. This caused problems because the majority of Ireland was Catholic. Catholics began to rebel against English Protestants, they were called nationalists. They were people who wanted Ireland to be one country. The United Kingdom responded by “planting” more Protestants in Northern Ireland. Most Protestants wanted to stay away from the UK and were called unionists. There were also loyalists who wanted to stay away from the UK, but used violence to do so. Republicans used violence to stay away from the Republic of Ireland. The potato famine increased hatred between Catholics and Protestants. The Protestants demanded rent from the Catholics; farmers used corn to pay for it and ate potatoes. When the potatoes began to suffer from famine, they faced a choice: they could starve and pay rent or be thrown out and lose everything! Home Rule is when a country wants to govern itself; Ireland did not have this as it was ruled by the English. They were fed up because they wanted their own government and when William Gladstone became Prime Minister of England he made sure of that. Gladstone wanted to give the whole of Ireland a government and parliament based in Dublin; this meant that they would control all Irish MPs in Westminster. This caused a large impact on Northern Ireland because most of the population was Protestant, which meant that much of the government would be Catholic. Protestants felt like they were being ruled by Catholics and they didn't like it. However, the first Home Rule bill was defeated 1886