Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland, a region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, lies in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It covers 14,139 km² (5,459 square miles), and has a population of 1,685,267 (April 2001). The capital is Belfast.

Overview

The Government of Ireland Act 1920, enacted by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland parliament, set up Northern Ireland as a separate political entity in 1921. Faced with divergent demands from Irish nationalists and Unionists over the future of the island of Ireland (the former wanted an all-Irish home rule parliament to govern the entire island, the latter no home rule at all), and the fear of civil war, the British Government under David Lloyd George passed the Act, creating two home-rule Irelands: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Southern Ireland never came into being as a real state: the Irish Free State superseded it in 1922. (That state now bears the name of "the Republic of Ireland".)

Geographic Nomenclature

Unionists often call Northern Ireland "Ulster" or "the Province"; nationalists often use the terms the "North of Ireland" and the "Six Counties". Ulster formed one of the historic provinces of the island of Ireland and consisted of 9 counties. Three of these now form part of the Republic of Ireland. The remaining six counties became Northern Ireland:

• County Antrim
• County Armagh
• County Down
• County Fermanagh
• County Tyrone
• County Londonderry/Derry

These traditional counties are no longer used for local government purposes; instead there are 26 districts of Northern Ireland. The "six counties" remain in use for cultural purposes such as the GAA and The Orange Order.

History

The area now known as Northern Ireland has had a diverse history. From serving as the bedrock of Irish nationalism in the era of the plantations of Queen Elizabeth and James I in other parts of Ireland, it became itself the subject of major planting of Scottish settlers after the Flight of the Earls (when the native governing and military nationalist elite left en masse). Today, Northern Ireland comprises a diverse patchwork of community rivalries, represented in Belfast by whole communities flying the tricolour of Irish republicanism or the Union Flag, the symbol of their British identity, while even the kerbstones in less affluent areas get painted green-white-orange or red-white-blue, depending on whether a local community expresses nationalist/republican or unionist/loyalist sympathies.

Early 20th century

Having received self-government in 1920 (even though they never sought it, and some like Sir Edward Carson opposed it bitterly) Northern Ireland under successive Prime Ministers from Sir James Craig (later Lord Craigavon) practised a policy of wholesale discrimination against the nationalist/Roman Catholic minority. Northern Ireland became, in the words of Nobel Peace Prize joint-winner, Ulster Unionist Leader and First Minister of Northern Ireland David Trimble, a "cold place for Catholics." Gerrymandered towns and city boundaries rigged local government elections to ensure Protestant control of local councils. Voting arrangements which gave commercial companies votes, and minimum income regulations also helped achieve similar ends.

Late 20th century

In the 1960s, moderate Unionist prime minister Terence O'Neill (later Lord O'Neill of the Maine) tried to reform the system, but encountered wholesale opposition from extreme fundamentalist Protestant leaders like the Reverend Ian Paisley. The increasing pressures from nationalists for reform and from extreme Unionists for 'No surrender' led to the appearance of the civil rights movement under figures like John Hume, Austin Currie and others. Clashes between marchers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary led to increased communal strife. The British army, originally sent to Northern Ireland by British Home Secretary, James Callaghan to protect nationalists from attack, received a warm welcome. However the murder of thirteen unarmed civilians in Derry by British paratroopers enflamed the situation and turned northern nationalists against the British Army. The appearance of the Provisional IRA, a breakaway from the increasingly Marxist Official IRA, and a campaign of violence by Loyalist paramilitary groups like the Ulster Defence Association and others, brought Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, extremists on both sides carried out a series of brutal acts of mass murders, often involving or even targeting innocent civilians. The most notorious outrages included the Le Mon bombing and the bombings in Enniskillen and Omagh, carried out by republicans in an attempt to force political change through guerilla warfare.

Some British politicians, notably former British Labour minister Tony Benn advocated British withdrawal from Ireland, but successive Irish governments opposed this policy, and called their prediction of the possible results of British withdrawal the Doomsday Scenario, depicting widespread communal strife, followed by the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children as refugees to their community's 'side' of the province; nationalists fleeing to western Northern Ireland, unionists fleeing to eastern Northern Ireland. The worst fear envisaged a civil war which would engulf not just Northern Ireland, but the neighbouring Republic of Ireland and Scotland both of which had major links with either or both communities. Later, the feared possible impact of British Withdrawal gained the designation the Balkanisation of Northern Ireland after the violent break-up of Yugoslavia and the chaos that unleashed.

In the early 1970s, the Parliament of Northern Ireland was prorogued after the province's Unionist Government under the premiership of Brian Faulkner refused to agree to the British Government demand that it hand over the powers of law and order. London introduced Direct Rule starting on March 24, 1972. New systems of governments were tried and failed, including power-sharing under Sunningdale Agreement, Rolling Devolution and the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

By the 1990s, the failure of the IRA campaign to win mass public support or achieve its aim of British Withdrawal, and in particular the public relations disaster of Enniskillen, when families attending a Remembrance Day ceremony, along with the replacement of the traditional Republican leadership of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh by Gerry Adams, saw a move away from armed conflict to political engagement.

These changes were followed the appearance of new leaders in Dublin Albert Reynolds, in London John Major (who signed the Downing Street Declaration) and in Ulster unionism David Trimble. Contacts, initially between Adams and John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, broadened out into all-party negotiations, that in 1998 produced the 'Good Friday Agreement. A majority of both communities in Northern Ireland approved this Agreement, as did the people of the Republic of Ireland, who amended their constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, to replace a claim it made to the territory of Northern Ireland with a recognition of Northern Ireland's right to exist, while also acknowledging the nationalist desire for a united Ireland.

After the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement

Under the Good Friday Agreement, properly known as the Belfast Agreement, voters elected a new Northern Ireland Assembly to form a Northern Irish parliament. Every party that reaches a specific level of support gains the right to name a member of its party to government and claim a ministry. Ulster Unionist party leader David Trimble became First Minister of Northern Ireland. The Deputy Leader of the SDLP, Seamus Mallon, became Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, though his party's new leader, Mark Durkan, subsequently replaced him. The Ulster Unionists, SDLP, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party each had ministers by right in the power-sharing assembly. The Assembly and its Executive are both currently suspended over unionist threats over the alleged delay in the Provisional IRA implementing its agreement to decommission its weaponry, and also the alleged discovery or an IRA spy-ring operating in the heart of the civil service. Government is now once more run by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy and a British ministerial team answerable to him.

The changing climate in Northern Ireland was represented by the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Parliament Buildings in Stormont, where she met nationalist ministers from the SDLP as well as unionist ministers, and spoke of the rights of those Northern Irish people who perceive themselves as Irish to be treated as equal citizens with those who regard themselves as British. Similarly, on visits to Northern Ireland, the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, met with unionist ministers and with the local Lord Lieutenant of each county, the representative of the Queen.

Demographics and Politics

Northern Ireland forms a complex entity, divided between two different cultural communities, unionists and nationalists. Both communities are often described by their predominant religious attachments; unionists are predominantly Protestant (the major Protestant faith is Presbyterianism, the second in terms of size is the Church of Ireland, while nationalists are predominantly Roman Catholic. However contrary to widespread belief, not all Roman Catholics necessarily support nationalism, and not all Protestants necessarily support unionism.

Once established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, Northern Ireland was structured geographically so as to have a unionist majority, unionist fears as to what would happen to them forming the basis for their opposition to a united Ireland, which led to creation of the two Irish states. However the Roman Catholic population has increased in percentage terms within Northern Ireland, while the Presbyterian and Church of Ireland population percentages have decreased.

The religious affiliations, based on census returns, have changed as follows between 1961 and 2002:

Most Irish Catholics (of both Gaelic and Anglo-Norman origin) still support reunification, while strong studies have shown that many from the Protestant community (especially the Scotch-Irish Presbyeterian community which produced many famous Irish nationalist rebels in the pastlike Wolfe Tone, Henry Joy and Robert Emmett) are beginning to move over to the nationalist/republican side again. Sinn Fein is currently the third largest party in all of Ireland and the largest in membership in Northern Ireland. For many decades the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party) representated the more "respectable" side of Irish republicanism, however since Sinn Fein's decision to take part in the British political process and since the 1998 Good Friday Accord, Sinn Fein has quickly grown to replace them. While on the unionist/loyalist side the UUP (Ulster Unionist Party) which traditionally has held the balance of power in the Six Counties has been quickly loosing support to the more extreme DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) led by a radical Presbyterian preacher, and anti-peace process activist, Rev. Ian Paisley. Despite this the peace process has continued to make headway in Northern Ireland with free elections for a Northern Ireland Assembly expected soon. There are a small minority of Irish Catholics who support union with Britain, however they are for the most part a very small and usually silent middle class minority. The Catholic population has begun to outgrow the protestant population, but with Catholics beginning to use contraceptives, reunification will most likely only occur with consent from the Anglo-Saxon and Scotch-Irish Protestant community, which may one day happen as sectarian divisions and hostilities continue to be set aside.

Aside from this, there are indications that the religion/party system may start to disintegrate. There is for example, a Catholic member of the Northern Ireland Assembly who is a member of the Ulster Unionist Party. Party structures in Great Britain tend to be based on social class more often than in Northern Ireland. In the long-term, as the constitutional question may become less relevant due to the emergence of the European Union, a less sectarian political system may develop. Currently none of the major UK parties contest elections in Northern Ireland, although the Ulster Unionists have had links to the Conservative Party. The Labour Party is a sister party within the Party of European Socialists to the Social Democratic Labour Party, and the Alliance Party is allied to the Liberal Democrats.

Finally there are also two tiny branches, both largely Protestant who adopt a stance of Northern Irish independance. The first is a hardline right wing group, which seek to re-establish the pre-civil rights "Protestant state for Protestant people". The second and less known group wish for an independant State built on non sectarian policies.

Languages

The dialect of English spoken in Northern Ireland shows heavy influence by that of Scotland, thereby giving it a distinct accent compared to other forms of Hiberno-English, along with the use of such Scots words as wee for 'little' and ay for 'yes'. Differences even exist in pronunciation between Protestants and Catholics, such as the letter h, which Protestants pronounce as "aitch", as in British English, and Catholics pronounce as haitch as in Hiberno-English. English is by far the most widely spoken language in Northern Ireland.

Under the Good Friday Agreement, Irish and Ulster Scots have official recognition on a par with that of English. Traditionally, the use of the Irish language in Northern Ireland has met with the considerable suspicion of Unionists, who associated it with the overwhelmingly Catholic Republic of Ireland, and later with republicans.

Ulster Scots comprises varieties of the Scots language spoken in Northern Ireland. Many claim it has become a separate language, descended from Scots in Scotland, whereas others question whether Scots is a separate language from English at all, or simply local dialects of Scottish and Northern Ireland English.

Chinese and Urdu are also spoken by Northern Ireland's Asian community. Given the size of the Chinese community in Northern Ireland, Chinese is now the second most widely spoken language, according to the most recent census returns.

Towns and villages

List of towns in Northern Ireland

• Armagh
• Ballycastle, Ballyclare, Banbridge, Bangor, Belfast
• Carnmoney, Carrickfergus, Cookstown, Craigavon
• Donaghadee, Downpatrick, Dungannon, Dungiven
• Enniskillen
• Glengormley
• Hillsborough
• Limavady, Londonderry, Lurgan
• Magherafelt
• Newcastle, Newry, Newtownards, Newtonstewart
• Omagh
• Portrush, Portstewart, Portaferry
• Strabane
• Warrenpoint

Places of interest

• The Mountains of Mourne
• Lough Neagh, the biggest lake in the British Isles, 153 square miles
• Lough Erne
• Strangford Lough
• Carlingford Lough
• The Giant's Causeway
• The Glens of Antrim
• Fermanagh Lakeland
• The Sperrin Mountains
• National parks of Northern Ireland

See also

• A Londonderry Air - anthem

• List of Ireland-related topics
• List of United Kingdom-related topics

Recommended Reading List

• Jonathan Bardon A History of Ulster Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 1996 [a very comprehensive history of the province]