Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom and the second-largest on the island of Ireland. It had a population of 343,542 in 2019. Belfast suffered greatly during the violence that accompanied the partition of Ireland, and especially during the more recent conflict known as the Troubles.
The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war". The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England and mainland Europe.
Alexander Gordon Higgins was a Northern Irish professional snooker player who is remembered as one of the most iconic figures in the game. Nicknamed "Hurricane Higgins" because of his fast play, he was World Champion in 1972 and 1982, and runner-up in 1976 and 1980. He became the first qualifier to win the world title in 1972, a feat only two players have achieved since – Terry Griffiths in 1979 and Shaun Murphy in 2005. He won the UK Championship in 1983 and the Masters in 1978 and 1981, making him one of eleven players to have completed snooker's Triple Crown. He was also World Doubles champion with Jimmy White in 1984, and won the World Cup three times with the All-Ireland team.
Martin Dillon is an Irish author, journalist, and broadcaster. He has won international acclaim for his investigative reporting and non-fiction works on The Troubles, including his bestselling trilogy, The Shankill Butchers, The Dirty War and God and the Gun, about the Northern Ireland conflict. The historian and scholar, Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien, described him as "our Virgil to that Inferno". The Irish Times hailed him as "one of the most creative writers of our time".
Terence George is an Irish screenwriter and director. Much of his film work involves "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
William James Nesbitt is a Northern Irish actor and television presenter.
Colin Bateman is a novelist, screenwriter and former journalist from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland.
Ian Adamson OBE was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician and paediatrician, who was the Lord Mayor of Belfast from 1996 to 1997. He was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Belfast from 1998 to 2003.
Monica Mary McWilliams is a Northern Irish academic, peace activist, human rights defender and former politician in Northern Ireland.
Malachi John O'Doherty is a journalist, author and broadcaster in Northern Ireland. He is the producer and presenter of the audio blog Arts Talk.
The Right Hon. David Wylie Bleakley CBE was a politician and peace campaigner in Northern Ireland.
Segregation in Northern Ireland is a long-running issue in the political and social history of Northern Ireland. The segregation involves Northern Ireland's two main voting blocs—Irish nationalist/republicans and unionist/loyalist. It is often seen as both a cause and effect of the "Troubles".
William Caulfield is a writer, actor, comedian and TV performer from Northern Ireland He has achieved popularity through his TV, radio and theatre shows.
Laurence McKeown is an Irish author, playwright, screenwriter, and former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
John David Brewer HDSSc, MRIA, FRSE, FAcSS, FRSA is an Irish-British sociologist who was the former President of the British Sociological Association (2009–12), and has been the Professor of Post Conflict Studies in the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen's University Belfast (2013–present), Honorary Professor Extraordinary, Stellenbosch University (2017–present) and Honorary Professor of Sociology, Warwick University (2021–present). He was formerly Sixth-Century Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen (2004–13). He is a member of the United Nations Roster of Global Experts for his work on peace processes (2010–present). He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2012 from Brunel University for services to social science.
James McKernan is an American and Irish citizen and educational theorist,. He is Professor of Education at East Carolina University, a constituent campus of the University of North Carolina. He has been the King Distinguished Professor and Chair of Education at East Carolina University; Dean and Chair of the Faculty of Education at the University of Limerick, Ireland; College Lecturer, Faculty of Arts, University College Dublin, Ireland and Fulbright Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and Research Fellow, Northern Ireland Council for Educational Research, Department of Psychology, Queen's University of Belfast.Professor McKernan has taught Palestinian university students when Israel closed schools and colleges there.
Baháʼí Faith in Northern Ireland begins after a century of contact between Irishmen and the Baháʼí Faith beyond the island and on the island. The members of the religion elected its first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly in 1949 in Belfast. The Baháʼís held an international conference in Dublin in 1982 which was described as “…one of the very few occasions when a world event for a faith community has been held in Ireland". By 1993 there were a dozen assemblies in Northern Ireland. By 2005 Baháʼí sources claim some 300 Baháʼís across Northern Ireland.
A Letter from Ulster is a 1942 documentary by Ulster-born movie director Brian Desmond Hurst who, along with his lifelong friend Terence Young (scriptwriter) and fellow Ulsterman and Assistant Director William (Bill) MacQuitty, created this film promoting a sense of community between the people of Northern Ireland and over one hundred thousand troops from the US based in Northern Ireland at the time. William Alwyn provided music.
Nick Hamm is a film, television, and theater director and producer born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He won a BAFTA award for his drama The Harmfulness of Tobacco, starring Edward Fox.
Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles is a book that details the lives of people that died as a result of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. It was written by Brian Feeney, Seamus Kelters, David McKittrick, David McVea and Chris Thornton and published 1999. The book was adapted into a film of the same name in 2019.