Bloody Sunday!

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For the most part, it WAS. And you can bet your bottom dollar that despite the "ethnic" spin by the media of Western Europe and North America, the Bosnian conflict was indeed a religious war.

But comparing the Irish Troubles to African conflicts is really apples and oranges, my friend. But I will say this:
Sometimes, the only solution to ending a civil war is for a nation to split apart. A good example of this is what happened in Sudan. The South Sudanese finally won their independence after 28 years of full scale warfare(which never happened in Northern Ireland).

The Northern Irish conflict was inter-communal, inter-ethnic and nationalist/political and religious as well, with all these latter things being part of the main dividing fault lines due to historical factors. Most Unionists were Protestants and most Nationalists were Catholics, but not all. Religion took the mantle of the various ethnic and political divisions in Northern Ireland - like a football strip if you like - but to say it was about religion completely is a nonsense. There were Protestant members of the IRA and in the SDLP and Roman Catholic members of the Unionist parties and the RUC. Also, consider that a lot of those people who played a role in the conflict who claimed strong adherence to a particular religion never went to church in their lives. So, if you like, religion and religious identity was an aggravating element but the conflict in NI was really about politics. There were hardly religious wars going on in England and Germany during that time between Catholics and Protestants just for being those things now were there?

"WE"?

'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'
What you're advocating is essentially an exacerbation of what has become entirely a gang turf war, after the (mostly) peaceful resolution of something that was partly or mostly (depending on your perspective) a gang turf war.

*snort*
dude, make up your mind. Are you Irish-American, or Cherokee? If the one, you can't claim that you'll be spared in the coming retaliatory wave of ethnic cleansing by the formerly oppressed Native Americans (/sarcasm); if the latter, you lack even the thinnest thread of connection to north end of that Island's occupation, rebellion, and subsequent peace.

edit:
a joke from the time of the troubles:
An Irish man is driving through Northern Ireland late one night when he's stopped abruptly by a makeshift roadblock and his car is surrounded by men with flashlights and guns. One of the men comes to the window, and asks,
'Are you Catholic or Protestant?'
The man thinks for a moment, and says, 'I'm an atheist.'
The man at the window goes back to his pals for a moment and has a discussion, and then comes back to the car window.
'Well,' he asks, 'Are you a Catholic atheist, or a Protestant atheist?'

A bit of basic arithmetic will tell you that you don't know a fraction of your family tree. 1 generation=2 ancestors, 2 generations=4+2 ancestors, 3 generations=8+4+2 ancestors, 4 generations=16+8+4+2 ancestors... That must be an awfully big book, if it tells you about every ancestor you've had (going back 800 years, as you keep mentioning that figure). Furthernore, you said you are Protestant. Although there is a Church of Ireland, which is Protestant, historically, the majority of people living in Ireland have been Catholic. Of all the people living in the Republic today, most of those who claim to be religious are Catholic. You still haven't said where your Protestant ancestor came from. If they came from Northern Ireland, they were probably descendant from Brits. Nonetheless, the UK (especially the west) and Ireland have very strong links. This is a group of islands. We got about on boats, traded, lived together, married one another. The Scots Gaelic language is practically the same as Irish Gaelic, because they are exactly the same people. For you to say that you don't have British ancestry is quite preposterous.

Ireland (or I take it you mean Northern Ireland) is not having a vote on independence. Ireland is not having a vote, primarily because it IS a republic already. Scotland is having such a vote, in 2014.

It's still "occupied" after 200 years and going strong!

Exactly - the people of Ireland and Britain are very closely related to one another.

The people of the North West of England have a lot of Irish ancestry - I'm sure my ancestors were Irish Catholics.

This part of England has been the subject of centuries of Irish emigration to England - both during the period when Ireland was part of the UK (England had mass immigration by Irish Catholics after the potato famine) and all the way through to the present day. Irish immigrants have often been the backbone of Britain's economy - even during World War II, Irish labourers and farming was often necessary to help keep the war effort going. Many Irishmen fought in British uniforms during World War I and World War II - in fact, per capita, many more Irish Catholics than Ulster Protestants fought in World War II in British uniforms.

There are lots of ferry services and flights available from my region of England to various destinations on the island of Ireland. The people of the islands mingle freely - OK, there might be an odd bit of banter about being English when in Ireland but it's no different than a Scot or Welsh person might get in England (or vice versa).

We're all quite similar - the culture is (more or less) similar these days, as well as the food, the street markings, the TV, the newspapers, the sports (Irish football in the Republic is very much a minority sport, whereas in Northern Ireland the tiny clubs there are often marred by sectarianism - most Irish footy fans support English and Scottish teams!). We're very intertwined with each other and Irish people have all the same rights as British people when in the UK and vice versa. The days of monarchs ordering mass slayings of Irish people are long, long ago.

What I'm trying to say is that, to a greater or lesser extent, the different parts of the British Isles are all really familiar to one another, and you'd certainly never really feel culturally homesick for foods in any part of the UK or the Republic of Ireland. The accents are different, the landscapes might be different, but that's all.

Nonetheless, why did you bring up Rwanda and other African conflicts? None which have the slightest bit in common with the Irish Troubles......

I'm German Irish of cherokee descent on my fathers side

My point was that a hell of a lot more people were killed in those (usually in a much shorter space of time) than were ever killed in the NI "Troubles".

Were your ancestors Irish Protestants? Most of the attacks of the IRA were not on English people but on Irish Protestants, many of whom supported (and continue) to support Northern Ireland's place in the UK.

Some of them were Protestants some of them were Catholic.

I think it would help UK/Irish relations (and the advancement of progress in general) if everyone did away with their national religions. Taking religious instruction out of public schools and stopping the institutionalized promotion/endorsement of a particular religion would go a long way towards promoting peace. Though the issue is much more about republican/unionist than catholic/protestant, it is still true that religion is used as a tool for dividing "them" from "us". Having national religions only supports that division.

If you have Irish, then you almost certainly have Scots. Your book can't go back for the entirety of the 800 years of oppression you claim, and somewhere back there one can safely assume that a cur got over the wall.

And how do you know that?