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| ⚫ | ] to its south and west.]] | ||
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| '''Northern Ireland''' is the smallest and least populous ] of the ]. It occupies roughly one sixth of the island of ] and is the only part of the United Kingdom to share a land border (that of the ]) with a foreign ]. | |||
| Northern Ireland was created in ] out of the continuation of the ], when the island of Ireland became part of the United Kingdom. Twenty-six counties of Ireland were separated from the United Kingdom in 1921, following the ] and subsequent ]. The remaining six counties were named Northern Ireland. The ] operated for 50 years, until it was suspended in ] due to civil disturbances known as ]. Several attempts have since been made to restore some form of ] to the region, culminating in the recent ]. It is sometimes described as a ], referring to it being a province of the United Kingdom, though it is also part of a larger Irish province called ]. | |||
| ⚫ | ] to its south and west]] | ||
| ] is Northern Ireland's ]. While the ] (shown right) no longer has official status, it is still widely used to represent Northern Ireland, particularly in sporting events. It is based on the older ] (with the addition of a crown, a star and a white background.) Flags and emblems are politically contentious, and several flags are widely flown. ] is the ] of Northern Ireland as well as the Republic of Ireland. | |||
| ] | |||
| Northern Ireland had the largest textile industry in the world before the last industrial and technological revolutions, combined with outsourcing of labour made production cheaper elsewhere. Belfast is also known for having two of the largest ] in the world, towering above the largest ] in the world, in its ship building factory ], which is also famous for producing the ill-fated ]. | |||
| <div style="text-align:right;margin-right:10px;margin-bottom:4px;">''']'''</div> | |||
Latest revision as of 06:13, 2 June 2022
Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] ; Ulster Scots: Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland that is variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares an open border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. At the 2021 census, its population was 1,903,175, making up around 3% of the UK's population and 27% of the population on the island of Ireland. 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 government of Northern Ireland cooperates with the government of Ireland in several areas under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. The Republic of Ireland also has a consultative role on non-devolved governmental matters through the British–Irish Governmental Conference (BIIG).
Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating a devolved government for the six northeastern counties. As was intended by unionists and their supporters in Westminster, Northern Ireland had a unionist majority, who wanted to remain in the United Kingdom; they were generally the Protestant descendants of colonists from Britain. Meanwhile, the majority in Southern Ireland (which became the Irish Free State in 1922), and a significant minority in Northern Ireland, were Irish nationalists (generally Catholics) who wanted a united independent Ireland. Today, the former generally see themselves as British and the latter generally see themselves as Irish, while a Northern Irish or Ulster identity is claimed by a significant minority from all backgrounds.
The creation of Northern Ireland was accompanied by violence both in defence of and against partition. During the conflict of 1920–22, the capital Belfast saw major communal violence, mainly between Protestant unionist and Catholic nationalist civilians. More than 500 were killed and more than 10,000 became refugees, mostly Catholics. For the next fifty years, Northern Ireland had an unbroken series of Unionist Party governments. There was informal mutual segregation by both communities, and the Unionist governments were accused of discrimination against the Irish nationalist and Catholic minority. In the late 1960s, a campaign to end discrimination against Catholics and nationalists was opposed by loyalists, who saw it as a republican front. 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. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement was a major step in the peace process, including paramilitary disarmament and security normalisation, although sectarianism and segregation remain major social problems, and sporadic violence has continued. (Full article...)