"A Country Divided" from One Belfast Boy by Patricia McMahon The following excerpt focuses on the civil conflict in Ireland.
In 1170, the king of England, Henry II, declared himself king of Ireland as well. Gradually, with great bloodshed, Ireland was brought under the control of England, or Great Britain, as England came to be known. Through the centuries, Ireland was held as a colony of the British Empire - held against the wishes of the Irish people.
There were also other people living in Ireland, however. English settlers had been going to Ireland for centuries, and beginning in 1609, James I, then king of England, offered land to Scottish settlers if they would move to Ireland and farm the land - land that was being taken from the native Irish.
To the Irish, these new arrivals came to be known as the strangers: people with a different language, a different way of life, and, most important, a different religion. For the people of Ireland were Catholic and the strangers taking over their land were Protestant. At that time in England, and in much of Europe, a terrible intolerance existed between different religions.
1. Based on the first few paragraphs, what is the author's purpose for this article? Highlight your answer yellow.
A. To entertain B. To inform C. To persuade

The English gradually put laws into place that said Catholics could not own land, could not vote, could not be elected to public office, or work for the government. Catholics were not allowed to be lawyers. They were not allowed to speak the Irish language or study Irish history or literature. They were forbidden to hold Mass. Bishops, priests, and monks were forced to leave the country. By 1790, the Irish people owned only 5 percent of their own land, and in 1800 the British government passed the Act of Union, declaring Ireland part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
2. What are three important things the Catholics were forbidden to do by the English?
a.
b.
c.