Match report <\/a><\/p>\n Small gallery<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe relationship between the two associations is in a great place, and we want to celebrate that tonight,\u201d said the pitchside announcer at the Aviva Stadium, Dublin, as two supporters ceremonially exchanged shirts pitchside ahead of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland\u2019s friendly on Thursday night in Dublin.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not entirely true, though, that the relationship between the Republic\u2019s FAI and the North\u2019s IFA is \u2018good\u2019.<\/p>\n It was only earlier this year, for example, that Northern boss Michael O\u2019Neill accused his compatriot Martin O\u2019Neill of trying to secure players from Northern Ireland especially targeting those with Catholic roots<\/a>. Nevertheless, until the Irish birder became one of the epicentres of the Brexit saga recently, there was no question that the political tensions in this part of the world were abating.<\/p>\n Even the existence of Northern Ireland, of course, has long been a source of dispute. When Ireland achieved its independence from the UK, a partition was drawn across the island. Northern Ireland was composed of six counties of Ulster and had a solidly pro-British and Protestant majority. That left the Irish Republic with 26 counties and a heavily Catholic majority, almost all of whom supported Home Rule and the independence.<\/p>\n Still, some of those in the south did not accept the division of their country, and an Irish Civil War ensued between the new Irish Government of the south and dissidents. The Government won and the border stayed not that the dissidents had any real chance of militarily defeating the Irish Government, then the Northern Irish state and then the British Army, merely to force 1 million people into a new Irish state against their will.<\/p>\n That settlement however left half a million Catholics who had yearned for a free Irish state still stuck in the UK, as a minority in Northern Ireland. They faced discrimination in jobs and housing. Political boundaries were gerrymandered to suit Protestant majorities.<\/p>\n A non-violent Civil Rights movement emerged and was brutally suppressed by the Northern Irish Police. TV photos of them battering unarmed demonstrators perturbed politicians in London. Eventually, the UK sent in troops to defend the Catholic population from both their Protestant neighbors and the police.<\/p>\n However seeing the British Army as the defenders of the Catholic population seriously irked militant Irish nationalists. To them, the British state as mush as their Ulster neighbours was the source of Ireland’s problems. Armed and dangerous, they made life difficult for the Army in Catholic areas and even worse for local people who were decent to the soldiers, eventually murdering their own people<\/a> just to dissuade them from being civil to the British soldiers.<\/p>\n it worked and the British Army soon found themselves unwelcome and unwanted in Catholic areas. They also had very little idea how to peace keep and their inability to replace a biased and sectarian police force came to a head when the Parachute Regiment shot dead 14 peaceful Civil Rights protesters in Derry in 1972. The day became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’<\/p>\n <\/p>\n