Okay, so it looks like there's the obvious Republican ideal of uniting Ireland, which is simple enough. But then this modern Republicanist militantism seems to stem from what that article refers to as civil rights violations against Catholics in Northern Ireland, but it doesn't say what those might have been.

And I can understand the Unionists desire to remain both British and on the land to which they were born, but beyond that idealism, is current (or even post-1922 in general) Irish government seen as inextricably tied to the Catholic Church, which seems to have been at least one of the biggest issues of the Unionists?