In May 2022, the UK Government proposed a bill in the House of Lords to make Irish an official language (and support Ulster Scots) in Northern Ireland and to create an Irish Language Commissioner. The Union Flag and the Ulster Banner are used exclusively by unionists. The Catholic and Protestant conflict in Ireland is known as "the Troubles." The Troubles occurred from 1968 to 1998. The women's side has played in the Women's World Cup. Recent census data shows that the population of Ireland is nearly split between Protestants and Catholics, with a growing percentage identifying with neither. LAND AND RESOURCES The total area of Northern Ireland is 14,160 sq km, of which 628 sq km is inland water. This entitlement was reaffirmed in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the British and Irish governments, which provides that: it is the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly [the two governments] confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland. The unemployment that had been so persistent in the 1930s disappeared, and labour shortages appeared, prompting migration from the Free State. In May 2022 it was announced the population had risen to 1.9 million,. The dialect spoken in Northern Ireland, Ulster Irish, has two main types, East Ulster Irish and Donegal Irish (or West Ulster Irish),[178] is the one closest to Scottish Gaelic (which developed into a separate language from Irish Gaelic in the 17th century). [208] Two of the three major international road race meetings are held in Northern Ireland, these being the North West 200[209] and the Ulster Grand Prix. [145] The population in 2011 was 1.8million, a rise of 7.5% over the previous decade. The most notable example is whether Northern Ireland's second-largest city should be called "Derry" or "Londonderry". Events and IPPV's throughout Northern Ireland.[218]. Long Kesh is the former name of Her Majesty's Prison Maze (see . [56] Conflict continued intermittently for two years, mostly in Belfast, which saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence between Protestants and Catholics, including rioting, gun battles, and bombings. The Ulster-dominated alliance represented the first Irish united front (prior resistance had always been localized). Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan were combined with the island's remaining 23 counties to form southern Ireland. [31] Its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. It first met on 7 June and formed its first devolved government, headed by Ulster Unionist Party leader James Craig. [44] The crisis was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, and Ireland's involvement in it. It was the first meeting between the two heads of government since partition. Northern Ireland comprises a patchwork of communities whose national loyalties are represented in some areas by flags flown from flagpoles or lamp posts. Apart from the public sector, another important service sector is tourism, which rose to account for over 1% of the economy's revenue in 2004. A man walks past a Marian mural in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Feb. 20, 2013. The wrestling promotion features championships, former WWE superstars and local independent wrestlers. A petrol bomb which was thrown at a police van (left) is pictured burning out in Rossville Street, Derry, Northern Ireland, October 1968. The Northern Ireland Office is led by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who sits in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the British Army successfully raised Irish regiments for the war on the Western Front in Europe. The Troubles (Irish: Na Trioblid) was an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland during the late 20th century. It won the European Cup in 1999. The county boundaries still appear on Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland Maps and the Philip's Street Atlases, among others. The Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland wrote into law rampant discrimination against Catholicsin housing, employment, education, and job opportunities. The valley of the River Lagan is dominated by Belfast, whose metropolitan area includes over a third of the population of Northern Ireland, with heavy urbanisation and industrialisation along the Lagan Valley and both shores of Belfast Lough. The biggest employer in Belfast was the shipyard, but it had a 95 percent Protestant workforce. As Counties Londonderry, Antrim, and Down are the only three counties of Northern Ireland with a shoreline this will apply to all of Northern Ireland. Religious Demographics About 93% of the Northern Irish population identifies as Christian, 1% is non-Christian and 6% is not religious. On August 14, the overwhelmed prime minister of Northern Ireland called on the British government to send in troops to restore order. With Iarnrd ireann (Irish Rail), Northern Ireland Railways co-operates in providing the joint Enterprise service between Dublin Connolly and Lanyon Place. [104] Publications of HM Treasury[105] and the Department of Finance and Personnel of the Northern Ireland Executive,[106] on the other hand, describe Northern Ireland as being a "region of the UK". People born in Northern Ireland are, with some exceptions, deemed by UK law to be citizens of the United Kingdom. Following the reform of local government in Northern Ireland the twenty-six districts created in 1973 were replaced with eleven "super districts". In 2021:[155]. 4 Zavasta 5 yr. ago Large amount of Catholics but still majority Protestant Unionist. Its true that most of Ireland was occupied and to varying degrees planted and seized by British landowners and aristocrats over the course of the 17th century. The first British troops arrived on the 15th August. [88] In its white paper on Brexit the United Kingdom government reiterated its commitment to the Belfast Agreement. The population of Northern Ireland on census day, 21 March 2021, was 1,903,175. That was bound to heighten the resistance of Ulster Protestants to inclusion within anything like a united Ireland. The police charged the protestors and simultaneously cut off their retreat. (Getty Images photo). But after the failure of the Rising and the subsequent executions of the leading revolutionaries the tricolour and 'The Soldier's Song' became more and more popular as symbols of the rebellion. Rioters throwing rocks and stones as trouble flared following the Apprentice Boys parade through the streets on Derry, Northern Ireland, August 13, 1969. Data from the 2021 census showed 45.7% of respondents identified as Catholic or were brought up Catholic, compared with . The Northern Ireland Assembly, established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the UK Government. The Irish restriction was given effect by the twenty-seventh amendment to the Irish Constitution in 2004. In the south, the once-unpopular Easter rebels immediately became national heroes. According to Stewart Weaver, a professor of history at the University of Rochester, over time both sides developed two very different and incompatible conceptions of what it means to be Irish: One Catholic, republican, and nationalist, and the other Protestant, loyalist, and unionist. Even kerbstones in some areas are painted red-white-blue or green-white-orange, depending on whether local people express unionist/loyalist or nationalist/republican sympathies. Native species include deciduous trees such as oak, ash, hazel, birch, alder, willow, aspen, elm, rowan and hawthorn, as well as evergreen trees such Scots pine, yew and holly. The third Peace Monitoring Report from 2014 examined data from the 2011 census in Northern Ireland and found that "the headline result was the narrowing of the gap between Catholics (45.1 per cent) and Protestants (48.4 per cent)". [226][227] People in Northern Ireland who live close to the border with the Republic of Ireland may inadvertently switch over to the Irish mobile networks, causing international roaming fees to be applied. The Government of Ireland Bill 1886 and Government of Ireland Bill 1893 were defeated. The weather is unpredictable at all times of the year, and although the seasons are distinct, they are considerably less pronounced than in interior Europe or the eastern seaboard of North America. Some words and phrases are shared with Scots Gaelic, and the dialects of east Ulster those of Rathlin Island and the Glens of Antrim were very similar to the dialect of Argyll, the part of Scotland nearest to Ireland. However, not all of those elected take their seats. The population density is 135 inhabitants / km2. [108] Some writers describe the United Kingdom as being made up of three countries and one province[109] or point out the difficulties with calling Northern Ireland a country. [197], The United Kingdom national anthem of "God Save the King" is often played at state events in Northern Ireland. [89], The main political divide in Northern Ireland is between unionists, who wish to see Northern Ireland continue as part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists, who wish to see Northern Ireland unified with the Republic of Ireland, independent from the United Kingdom. The main universities in Northern Ireland are Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, and the distance learning Open University which has a regional office in Belfast. Irish nationalist members refused to attend. One curious fact of the Northern Irish psyche that has been true for a long, long time, is that while they are intensely loyal to the crown and the union with Great Britain, theres also no love lost between the Northern Irish unionists and Great Britain: the Irish unionists always feel let down, always feel betrayed. Northern Ireland's golf courses include the Royal Belfast Golf Club (the earliest, formed in 1881), Royal Portrush Golf Club, which is the only course outside Great Britain to have hosted The Open Championship, and Royal County Down Golf Club (Golf Digest magazine's top-rated course outside the United States).[206][207]. NISL takes a large component from the British family of sign language (which also includes Auslan) with many borrowings from ASL. In general, though, it is striking that Protestants are concentrated on the eastern side of Northern Ireland. [23] For the next fifty years, Northern Ireland had an unbroken series of Unionist Party governments. In the summer of 1920, sectarian violence erupted in Belfast and Derry, and there were mass burnings of Catholic property in Lisburn and Banbridge. Sports tend to be organised on an all-Ireland basis, with a single team for the whole island. One of the men's side's regular international venues is Stormont in Belfast. All of these factors hardened Protestant suspicion in the north and their reluctance to be drawn into an independent Ireland in the south. It established a devolved power-sharing government, the Northern Ireland Assembly, located on the Stormont Estate, which must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties. After mounting tensions between Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists, particularly in Belfast and Derry, violence broke out in the late 1960s. 759 (N.I. Some 250,000 Ulster Presbyterians emigrated to the British North American colonies between 1717 and 1775. There are 462 seats that will be contested in all of Northern Ireland's 11 councils. This was bitterly opposed by Irish Unionists, most of whom were Protestants, who feared an Irish devolved government dominated by Irish nationalists and Catholics. [152] At the 2011 census, 48% came from a Protestant background, 45% from a Catholic background, 0.9% from other religious backgrounds, and 5.6% from non-religious backgrounds. Is the IRA Protestant or Catholic? Irish Sign Language (ISL) has some influence from the French family of sign language, which includes American Sign Language (ASL). 1824, completed 1846. The Ireland national rugby league team has participated in the Emerging Nations Tournament (1995), the Super League World Nines (1996), the World Cup (2000, 2008, 2013, 2017, 2021), European Nations Cup (since 2003) and Victory Cup (2004). [21] More than 500 were killed[22] and more than 10,000 became refugees, mostly Catholics. The volcanic activity which created the Antrim Plateau also formed the geometric pillars of the Giant's Causeway on the north Antrim coast. The population of Northern Ireland is about 1.9 million people with a third of this population residing in the Belfast Metropolitan area. The six counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh comprised the maximum area unionists believed they could dominate,[48] The area that was to become Northern Ireland included counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, even though they had nationalist majorities in the 1918 Irish general election. Sinn Fin's elected members boycotted the British parliament and founded a separate Irish parliament (Dil ireann), declaring an independent Irish Republic covering the whole island. Also in north Antrim are the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Mussenden Temple and the Glens of Antrim. Northern Ireland consists of six historic counties: County Antrim, County Armagh, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Londonderry,[b] and County Tyrone. One in Donegal by the pretend republicans in RAAD - beating, shooting, exiling and murdering nationalists without any due process. The third phase of main statistics results from Census 2021 are now available. ), The General Post Office in Dublinthe headquarters of Irish nationalists of the Irish Republican Brotherhood during the 1916 Easter Risingwas gutted by British forces in a swift military response to the rebellion. [78] From 1967 to 1972 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), which modelled itself on the US civil rights movement, led a campaign of civil resistance to anti-Catholic discrimination in housing, employment, policing, and electoral procedures. So that made Ulster culturally and confessionally distinct. Together they are commonly called Ulster, though the territory does not include the entire ancient province of Ulster. On this basis, the authors say that the choice of an integrated school is often 'illusory'. As of the 2021 census, the population of Northern Ireland is almost entirely white (96.6%). (National Library of Ireland on The Commons @ Flickr Commons). Very little is known about marriage across the major religio-ethnic divide in Northern Ireland, that between Roman Catholic and Protes tant.1 Where marriage across this divide is mentioned in sociological or anthropological studies of Northern Irish society it is usually only to It is slightly larger than Connecticut. In the 1960s, a new generation of politically and socially conscious young Catholic nationalists in Northern Ireland started looking to the civil rights movement in America as a model for ending what they saw as brazen anti-Catholic discrimination in their home country. During the conflict of 192022, the capital Belfast saw major communal violence, mainly between Protestant unionist and Catholic nationalist civilians. However, there are important differences in law and procedure between Northern Ireland and England and Wales. The Gaelic Athletic Association still uses the counties as its primary means of organisation and fields representative teams of each GAA county. This is one of the four major cycles of Irish mythology. The partition of Ireland, which became effective in May 1921, was not intended to remain in place for long. How do other sports in the island cope with the situation? The Northern Ireland Office represents the UK Government in Northern Ireland on reserved matters and represents Northern Ireland's interests within the UK Government. According to the 2021 Census, in 94.74% of households, all people aged 16 and above spoke English as their main language. October 5, 1968 was when the Troubles began, argues Smyth, and those TV images are etched in the peoples memory.. [220] All Northern Ireland viewers must obtain a UK TV licence to watch live television transmissions or use BBC iPlayer. At the same time, the UK Government recognised for the first time, as part of the prospective, the so-called "Irish dimension": the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. Efforts by members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to legislate for some official uses of the language have failed to achieve the required cross-community support. So that was one critical respect in which partition did not go the way the British had meant it to. [185], As of March2004[update] the UK Government recognises only British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language as the official sign languages used in Northern Ireland.[186][187]. The Union Jack and the former Northern Ireland flag are flown in many loyalist areas, and the Tricolour, adopted by republicans as the flag of Ireland in 1916,[192] is flown in some republican areas. These operate separately under the aegis of the North/South Language Body, which reports to the North/South Ministerial Council. Renunciation of British citizenship requires the payment of a fee, currently 372. [43] In May 1914, the UK Government introduced an Amending Bill to allow for 'Ulster' to be excluded from Home Rule. The team's roster has featured Northern Irish-born players such as Mark Morrison, Graeme Walton and Gareth Roberts among others. [27] This unrest sparked the Troubles, a thirty-year conflict involving republican and loyalist paramilitaries and state forces, which claimed over 3,500 lives and injured 50,000 others. He was drafted 1st overall in the 1990 NHL Draft by the Quebec Nordiques. Boundaries were mapped and spellings standardised by Ordnance Survey of Ireland, Est. Of the four, football is the most popular in Northern Ireland. The RUC and the reserve Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) were militarized police forces due to the perceived threat of militant republicanism. Both governments exclude some people born in Northern Ireland, in particular persons born without one parent who is a British or Irish citizen. The BBC has a division called BBC Northern Ireland with headquarters in Belfast and operates BBC One Northern Ireland and BBC Two Northern Ireland. [74], In 1965, Northern Ireland's Prime Minister Terence O'Neill met the Taoiseach, Sen Lemass. Many Protestants, loyalists and unionists believed the violence showed the true face of the Northern Ireland Catholic civil rights movement - as a front for the IRA and armed insurrection. Headed by English unionist politician Walter Long, it was known as the 'Long Committee'. The region that is now Northern Ireland was long inhabited by native Gaels who were Irish-speaking and predominantly Catholic. The largest course and the only Motor Sports Association-licensed track for UK-wide competition is Kirkistown Circuit.[214]. Long Kesh. Spellings still vary greatly in everyday usage. The majority of its residents are Catholic. [12][13][14] The choice of term can be controversial and can reveal the writer's political preferences. In AprilMay 1941, the Belfast Blitz began when the Luftwaffe launched a series of raids that were the most deadly seen outside London. The Republic is an independent nation covering a little more than 80% of the island. The nationalist activists wanted to draw attention to discriminatory housing policies that resulted in de facto segregation along sectarian and religious lines. [228] Calls from landlines in Northern Ireland to numbers in the Republic of Ireland are charged at the same rate as those to numbers in Great Britain, while landline numbers in Northern Ireland can similarly be called from the Republic of Ireland at domestic rates, using the 048 prefix.[229]. The intention was to disadvantage Catholics and, to a lesser extent, Presbyterians. The year 2021 marks 100 years since the Government of the United Kingdom and Ireland divided the Emerald Isle into two self-governing political entitiesNorthern Ireland and Southern Irelandunder the Government of Ireland Act. Tourism has been a major growth area since the end of the Troubles. Before Brexit, I would have said, yes. There was a kind of momentum and there seemed to be a will for reunification. But Irish nationalists had unilaterally declared an independent Ireland and launched a guerrilla campaignthe Irish War of Independence, or Anglo-Irish War (191921) and refused to recognize the act; they refused to reconcile themselves to remaining within the United Kingdom. Today, the language is often associated with Irish nationalism (and thus with Catholics). The name usage does not indicate an endorsement for either community's opinions. There are records of Protestant farmers in these areas being attacked. The census reports do not distinguish between Protestant and other non-Catholic Christian faiths. [147] In 2021, 86.5% of the population were born in Northern Ireland, with 4.8% born in Great Britain, 2.1% born in the Republic of Ireland, and 6.5% born elsewhere (more than half of them in another European country). These nine county teams participate in the Ulster Senior Football Championship, Ulster Senior Hurling Championship, All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. The Protestant population is older and passing away and has dropped to 42%. Devolution in Northern Ireland is dependent upon participation by members of the Northern Ireland executive in the North/South Ministerial Council, which coordinates areas of cooperation (such as agriculture, education, and health) between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Government of Ireland Act was designed to create two separate Home Rule territories, both of which would remain in the United Kingdoma Northern Ireland and a Southern Irelandthat would both be quasi-autonomous, self-governing entities of the United Kingdom. During the 19th century, legal reforms known as the Catholic emancipation continued to remove discrimination against Catholics, and progressive programs enabled tenant farmers to buy land from landlords. So its not true that Ireland, in general, chose this moment to rebel. The city was thinly defended, and had only 24 anti-aircraft guns. During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Northern Ireland suffered dozens of car bombings and sectarian attacks perpetrated by paramilitary groups on both sides like the Provisional IRA and the Ulster Volunteer Force. As well as the standard UK-wide radio stations from the BBC, Northern Ireland is home to many local radio stations, such as Cool FM, Q Radio, Downtown Radio and U105. [180][181] There has recently been an increase in interest in the language among unionists in East Belfast. Since 1987 public houses have been allowed to open on Sundays, despite some opposition. The highest maximum temperature recorded was 31.4C (88.5F), registered in July 2021 at Armagh Observatory's weather station. NICRA's campaign, seen by many unionists as an Irish republican front, and the violent reaction to it proved to be a precursor to a more violent period.
Gloucester Times Abbie Flynn,
Cody Haden Church Net Worth,
Articles W