Northern Ireland 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).
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 to 2008.
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore order during The Troubles, resulting in the introduction of direct rule. It was abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It was created as a separate legal entity on 3 May 1921, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The new autonomous Northern Ireland was formed from six of the nine counties of Ulster: four counties with unionist majorities – Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Londonderry – and two counties with slight Irish nationalist majorities – Fermanagh and Tyrone – in the 1918 General Election. The remaining three Ulster counties with larger nationalist majorities were not included. In large part unionists, at least in the north-east, supported its creation while nationalists were opposed.
The only official flag for Northern Ireland is the Union Flag or Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom; there is no official local flag that represents only Northern Ireland. The flying of various flags in Northern Ireland is a significant sectarian issue, with different communities identifying with different flags.
Unionism in Ireland is a political tradition that professes loyalty to the crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England, Scotland and Wales. The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority, unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Irish parliament. Since Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an all-Ireland republic. Within the framework of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly. As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Irish republican First Minister.
The Twelfth is a primarily Ulster Protestant celebration held on 12 July. It began in the late 18th century in Ulster. It celebrates the Glorious Revolution (1688) and victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne (1690), which ensured a Whig political party and Anglican Ascendancy in Ireland and the passing of the Penal Laws to disenfranchise and persecute the nation's Catholic majority, and to a lesser extent Protestant Dissenters, until Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
Ulster nationalism is a minor school of thought in the politics of Northern Ireland that seeks the independence of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom without joining the Republic of Ireland, thereby becoming an independent sovereign state separate from both.
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a united Ireland independent of the UK. Unlike other strands of unionism, loyalism has been described as an ethnic nationalism of Ulster Protestants and "a variation of British nationalism". Loyalists are often said to have a conditional loyalty to the British state so long as it defends their interests. They see themselves as loyal primarily to the Protestant British monarchy rather than to British governments and institutions, while Garret FitzGerald argued they are loyal to 'Ulster' over 'the Union'. A small minority of loyalists have called for an independent Ulster Protestant state, believing they cannot rely on British governments to support them. The term 'loyalism' is usually associated with paramilitarism.
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants. It also has lodges in England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, as well as in parts of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States.
The Northern Ireland flags issue is one that divides the population along sectarian lines. Depending on political allegiance, people identify with differing flags and symbols, some of which have, or have had, official status in Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Assembly established in 1982 represented an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to restore the devolution to Northern Ireland which had been suspended 10 years previously. The Assembly was dissolved in 1986.
The Civil Authorities Act 1922, often referred to simply as the Special Powers Act and known as the "Flogging Act", was an act passed by the Parliament of Northern Ireland during the partition of Ireland and shortly after the establishment of Northern Ireland. The Act was renewed annually and in 1928 was renewed for five years and made permanent in 1933 and not repealed until 1973. Its sweeping powers made it highly controversial, and it was seen by much of the Irish nationalist community as a tool of Ulster unionist oppression. The Act was eventually repealed by the Northern Ireland Act 1973, following the abolition of Northern Ireland's parliament and the imposition of direct rule by the British government.
In Northern Ireland, the Eleventh Night or 11th Night, also known as "bonfire night", is the night before the Twelfth of July, an Ulster Protestant celebration. On this night, towering bonfires are lit in Protestant loyalist neighbourhoods, and are often accompanied by street parties and loyalist marching bands. The bonfires are mostly made of wooden pallets and locally collected wood. They originally celebrated the Williamite conquest of the 1690s, which began the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland and has been maintained by the Protestant community. Eleventh Night events are often condemned for sectarianism or ethnic hatred against Irish Catholics, Irish nationalists, and Irish people broadly, such as the burning of Irish tricolours, and for damage and pollution caused. Some are controlled by loyalist paramilitaries, and authorities may be wary of taking action against controversial bonfires. In 2021, there were about 250 Eleventh Night bonfires.
The Party Processions Act was an 1850 Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom which prohibited open marching, organised parades and sectarian meetings in Ireland in order to outlaw provocative movements in the wake of the Dolly's Brae fighting of 1849. Written on 8 February, the Act was assembled against people "in the practice of assembling and marching together in procession in Ireland in a manner calculated to create and perpetuate animosities between different classes of Her Majesty's Subjects, and to endanger the public peace." Actions such as using banners, emblems and flags constituted an offence, as did music "calculated or tend to provoke animosity". Violation of the Act was classed as a misdemeanor. The Act was strongly supported by Sir Robert Peel however opposed by other politicians such as Lord Claude Hamilton who argued that religious parades would also be outlawed, yet posed no threat. The Party Emblems Act was passed in 1860 to further support this measure following further riots at Derrymacash. The Act was "grudgingly" accepted by the Orangemen, however both the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Young Ireland movement, and related Fenian movements were less placated. William Johnston of Ballykilbeg led a radical Orangemen group in defiance of the act during the 1860s, and was imprisoned – prompting strong demand for its repeal in 1867, which succeeded in 1872. The issue and repeal of the Act is viewed as an important milestone by nationalist historians of Ireland, and is said to be an example of Irish suppression by the "English" government. Peel, however, was one of a number of Members of Parliament who viewed the Act as a necessity to prevent Catholic and Protestant in-fighting rather than Irish nationalism as a whole. Traditional, revisionist and post-revisionist historians have subsequently supported either viewpoint and the Act remains a controversial one.
The Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of World War I.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Northern Ireland.
The national flag of Ireland, frequently referred to in Ireland as 'the tricolour' and elsewhere as the Irish tricolour, is a vertical tricolour of green, white and orange. The proportions of the flag are 1:2.
On 3 December 2012, Belfast City Council voted to limit the days that the Union Flag flies from Belfast City Hall. Since 1906, the flag had been flown every day of the year. This was reduced to 18 specific days a year, the minimum requirement for UK government buildings. The move to limit the number of days was backed by the council's Irish nationalists while the Alliance Party abstained from the vote; it was opposed by the unionist councillors.
