Portal:Northern Ireland
The Northern Ireland Portal
Introduction![]() Location of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom ![]() Northern Ireland borders the Republic of Ireland to its south and west. Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] ( Northern Ireland was created in May 1921, when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating a devolved government for the six northeastern counties. As was intended, 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. Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, with Northern Ireland sharing both the culture of Ireland and the culture of the United Kingdom. In many sports, Ireland fields a single team, with the Northern Ireland national football team being an exception to this. Northern Ireland competes separately at the Commonwealth Games, and people from Northern Ireland may compete for either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympic Games. (Full article...) Selected article -
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights in Northern Ireland have traditionally been slower to advance than the rest of the United Kingdom, with the region having lagged behind England, Scotland, and Wales. Northern Ireland was the last part of the United Kingdom where same-sex sexual activity was decriminalised, the last to implement a blood donation “monogamous no waiting period” policy system for men who have sex with men and, after intervention by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the last to allow same-sex marriage. Compared to the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, all major LGBT rights milestones had been reached earlier in Northern Ireland, with the exception of same-sex marriage. Homosexuality was decriminalised in Northern Ireland a decade earlier and civil partnerships were introduced six years earlier. Most liberalisation of LGBT rights in Northern Ireland has been achieved under direct rule by the Government of the United Kingdom, British parliamentary legislation or court decisions rather than through laws passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly. This is due to the veto power exercised by opponents of LGBT rights, such as the Democratic Unionist Party, under Northern Ireland's power-sharing system. In 2017, ILGA rated Northern Ireland last place in the United Kingdom for LGBT people, with 74% equality of rights compared to 86% LGBT equality in the United Kingdom overall and 92% equality in Scotland, but above the Republic of Ireland which was ranked 52% the same year. (Full article...)Selected picture -Northern Ireland listsRelated portalsSelected biography -James White (7 April 1928 – 23 August 1999) was a Northern Irish author of science fiction novellas, short stories and novels. He was born in Belfast and returned there after spending some early years in Canada. After a few years working in the clothing industry, he worked at Short Brothers Ltd., an aircraft company based in Belfast, from 1965 until taking early retirement in 1984 as a result of diabetes. White married Margaret Sarah Martin, another science fiction fan, in 1955 and the couple had three children. He died of a stroke. He became a fan of science fiction in 1941 and co-wrote two fan magazines, from 1948 to 1953 and 1952 to 1965. Encouraged by other fans, White began publishing short stories in 1953, and his first novel was published in 1957. His best-known novels were the twelve of the Sector General series, the first published in 1962 and the last after his death. White also published nine other novels, two of which were nominated for major awards, unsuccessfully. (Full article...)Did you know (auto-generated) -
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