Visiting Ireland at the moment and I don’t want to misunderstand or say anything incorrect when conversations come up!
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The issues are that of a nationalist/religious kind. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, England invaded and colonized Ireland, creating a puppet state that lasted until 1801 when they Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland united into the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Fast forward to the early Interwar period and you got the Irish War of Independence, which resulted in the partition of Ireland, with 26 counties being sovereign, independent Irish (Free State) territory and the northeastern 6 (known as Northern Ireland) remaining British. In 1937, Ireland got their constitution and in 1948, formally became the Republic of Ireland.
Fast forward to late 60s and you got The Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict between the Irish Catholics including various Irish Republican paramilitaries, as well as the Northern Irish Protestants and the Ulster Loyalist paramilitaries. This was a bloody conflict involving riots, terrorist attacks, and so-called peace lines, dividing Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods.
Ireland is independent, Northern Ireland is part of the UK (not entirely voluntarily, obviously, couple hundred years ago England was just doing their usual ‘Oh that land looks nice, it’s mine now’ ). There’s a lot of Irish people who aren’t big fans of their country being cleaved in two like that, and want NI to rejoin Ireland and gain independence from the UK. The fact that the UK follows the Church of England but Ireland is traditionally deeply Catholic is a further exasperating factor.
These tensions came to a head during the troubles from the 60’s to the late 90’s when the paramilitary Irish Republican Army waged a low level violent conflict against Ulster Loyalists (pro uk irish paramilitary) and the UK army.
The troubles mostly ended with the 1998 Good Friday agreement which is a complex series of treaties about how NI is governed.
Brexit and the issue of the border between NI and Ireland brought the whole thing back into the public mind in the last few years.
If you want a rough Irish history speedrun:
Starting around the 12th century or so, Ireland began to be raided by/invaded by/occupied by/settled by/unioned with whoever was in power in Britain at the time. As often happens, the reaction in Ireland to this varied over the centuries depending on the living and economic conditions, from acceptance when things were relatively good to outright hatred when things were terrible (19th century famines especially).
In the early 20th century, a short independence struggle lead to a treaty agreeing that Ireland could leave the UK, but the part of Ireland where the largely Protestant, “Unionist” descendants of the (17th century) settlers were in the majority, could remain in the UK. And they chose to do so.
So Ireland split, between an independent state in the (Republic of) Ireland, and Northern Ireland which remained in the UK. The history of Northern Ireland was very troubled, with a lot of discrimination against the Catholic “Nationalist” minority, attacks, reprisals, collusion by security services. Things got very ugly from the ’60s onwards.
Things, IMO, were greatly helped by the US’s involvement as a 3rd party. They helped encourage an agreement (the Good Friday Agreement) which had something for everyone. Anyone in Northern Ireland can have an Irish passport, or a British one. Can travel freely across the border to (the Republic of) Ireland, or travel across the sea to the rest of the UK. Plus the Republic gave up its claim to Northern Ireland, and both Ireland and the UK acknowledged that Northern Ireland is free to choose its own path.
Things have been relatively better, but potential changes due to the UK leaving the EU are shaking the foundations again, with customs and freedom-of-movement issues arising. Suddenly there’s the potential of border patrols and checkpoints being introduced, and it’s making people fear a return to the violence of the 60s/70s/80s.
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