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Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] ;[12] 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.[13][14][15][16][17] 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,[7] 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.[18] The Republic of Ireland also has a consultative role on non-devolved governmental matters through the British–Irish Governmental Conference (BIIG).[19]
Northern Ireland
| |
---|---|
Anthem: Various | |
Status | Country |
Capital and largest city | Belfast 54.596°N 5.93°W |
Official languages | |
Regional and minority languages | Ulster Scots |
Ethnic groups | |
Religion (2021)[4] | List
|
Government | Consociational devolved legislature within unitary constitutional monarchy |
• Monarch | Charles III |
Michelle O'Neill | |
Emma Little-Pengelly | |
Parliament of the United Kingdom | |
• Secretary of State | Hilary Benn |
• House of Commons | 18 MPs (of 650) |
Legislature | Northern Ireland Assembly |
Devolution | |
3 May 1921 | |
18 July 1973 | |
17 July 1974 | |
19 November 1998 | |
Area | |
• Total[lower-alpha 1] | 14,330 km2 (5,530 sq mi)[5] |
• Land[lower-alpha 2] | 13,547 km2 (5,231 sq mi)[6] |
Population | |
• 2022 estimate | 1,910,543[6] |
• 2021 census | 1,903,175[7] |
• Density | 141/km2 (365.2/sq mi)[6] |
GVA | 2022 estimate |
• Total | £49.9 billion |
• Per capita | £26,119[8] |
GDP (nominal) | 2022 estimate |
• Total | £56.7 billion |
• Per capita | £29,674[9] |
HDI (2022) | 0.907[10] very high |
Currency | Pound sterling (GBP; £) |
Time zone | UTC+0 (GMT) |
UTC+1 (BST) | |
Date format | dd/mm/yyyy (AD) |
Drives on | left |
Calling code | +44[lower-alpha 3] |
ISO 3166 code | GB-NIR |
|
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;[20] 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.[21] 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.[22]
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.[23] More than 500 were killed[24] and more than 10,000 became refugees, mostly Catholics.[25] For the next fifty years, Northern Ireland had an unbroken series of Unionist Party governments.[26] There was informal mutual segregation by both communities,[27] and the Unionist governments were accused of discrimination against the Irish nationalist and Catholic minority.[28] In the late 1960s, a campaign to end discrimination against Catholics and nationalists was opposed by loyalists, who saw it as a republican front.[29] 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.[30][31] 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.[32]
The economy of Northern Ireland was the most industrialised in Ireland at the time of partition, but soon began to decline, exacerbated by the political and social turmoil of the Troubles.[33] Its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. Unemployment in Northern Ireland peaked at 17.2% in 1986, but dropped back down to below 10% in the 2010s,[34] similar to the rate of the rest of the UK.[35] 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, there is an All-Ireland governing body or team for the whole island; the most notable exception is association football. 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.
The region that is now Northern Ireland was long inhabited by native Gaels who were Irish-speaking and predominantly Catholic.[36] It was made up of several Gaelic kingdoms and territories and was part of the province of Ulster. In 1169, Ireland was invaded by a coalition of forces under the command of the English crown that quickly overran and occupied most of the island, beginning 800 years of foreign central authority. Attempts at resistance were swiftly crushed everywhere outside of Ulster. Unlike in the rest of the country, where Gaelic authority continued only in scattered, remote pockets, the major kingdoms of Ulster would mostly remain intact with English authority in the province contained to areas on the eastern coast closest to Great Britain. English power gradually eroded in the face of stubborn Irish resistance in the centuries that followed; eventually being reduced to only the city of Dublin and its suburbs. When Henry VIII launched the 16th century Tudor re-conquest of Ireland, Ulster once again resisted most effectively. In the Nine Years' War (1594–1603), an alliance of Gaelic chieftains led by the two most powerful Ulster lords, Hugh Roe O'Donnell and the Earl of Tyrone fought against the English government in Ireland. The Ulster-dominated alliance represented the first Irish united front; prior resistance had always been geographically localized. Despite being able to cement an alliance with Spain and major victories early on, defeat was virtually inevitable following England's victory at the siege of Kinsale. In 1607, the rebellion's leaders fled to mainland Europe alongside much of Ulster's Gaelic nobility. Their lands were confiscated by the Crown and colonized with English-speaking Protestant settlers from Britain, in the Plantation of Ulster. This led to the founding of many of Ulster's towns and created a lasting Ulster Protestant community with ties to Britain. The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began in Ulster. The rebels wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to roll back the Plantation. It developed into an ethnic conflict between Irish Catholics and British Protestant settlers and became part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–53), which ended with the English Parliamentarian conquest. Further Protestant victories in the Williamite-Jacobite War (1688–91) solidified Anglican Protestant rule in the Kingdom of Ireland. The Williamite victories of the siege of Derry (1689) and Battle of the Boyne (1690) are still celebrated by some Protestants in Northern Ireland.[37] Many more Scots Protestants migrated to Ulster during the Scottish famine of the 1690s.
Following the Williamite victory, and contrary to the Treaty of Limerick (1691), a series of Penal Laws were passed by the Anglican Protestant ruling class in Ireland. The intention was to disadvantage Catholics and, to a lesser extent, Presbyterians. Some 250,000 Ulster Presbyterians emigrated to the British North American colonies between 1717 and 1775.[38] It is estimated that there are more than 27 million Scotch-Irish Americans now living in the United States,[39] along with many Scotch-Irish Canadians in Canada. In the context of institutional discrimination, the 18th century saw secret, militant societies develop in Ulster and act on sectarian tensions in violent attacks. This escalated at the end of the century, especially during the County Armagh disturbances, where the Protestant Peep o' Day Boys fought the Catholic Defenders. This led to the founding of the Protestant Orange Order. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was led by the United Irishmen; a cross-community Irish republican group founded by Belfast Presbyterians, which sought Irish independence. Following this, the government of the Kingdom of Great Britain pushed for the two kingdoms to be merged, in an attempt to quell violent sectarianism, remove discriminatory laws, and prevent the spread of French-style republicanism. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed in 1801 and governed from London. During the 19th century, legal reforms known as the Catholic emancipation continued to remove discrimination against Catholics, and progressive programs enabled tenant farmers to buy land from landlords.
By the late 19th century, a large and disciplined cohort of Irish Nationalist MPs at Westminster committed the Liberal Party to "Irish Home Rule"—self-government for Ireland, within the United Kingdom. This was bitterly opposed by Irish Unionists, most of whom were Protestants, who feared an Irish devolved government dominated by Irish nationalists and Catholics. The Government of Ireland Bill 1886 and Government of Ireland Bill 1893 were defeated. However, Home Rule became a near-certainty in 1912 after the Government of Ireland Act 1914 was first introduced. The Liberal government was dependent on Nationalist support, and the Parliament Act 1911 prevented the House of Lords from blocking the bill indefinitely.[40]
In response, unionists vowed to prevent Irish Home Rule, from Conservative and Unionist Party leaders such as Bonar Law and Dublin-based barrister Edward Carson to militant working class unionists in Ireland. This sparked the Home Rule Crisis. In September 1912, more than 500,000 unionists signed the Ulster Covenant, pledging to oppose Home Rule by any means and to defy any Irish government.[41] In 1914, unionists smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for use by the Ulster Volunteers (UVF), a paramilitary organisation formed to oppose Home Rule. Irish nationalists had also formed a paramilitary organisation, the Irish Volunteers. It sought to ensure Home Rule was implemented, and it smuggled its own weapons into Ireland a few months after the Ulster Volunteers.[42] Ireland seemed to be on the brink of civil war.[43]
Unionists were in a minority in Ireland as a whole, but a majority in the province of Ulster, especially the counties Antrim, Down, Armagh and Londonderry.[44] Unionists argued that if Home Rule could not be stopped then all or part of Ulster should be excluded from it.[45] In May 1914, the UK Government introduced an Amending Bill to allow for 'Ulster' to be excluded from Home Rule. There was then debate over how much of Ulster should be excluded and for how long. Some Ulster unionists were willing to tolerate the 'loss' of some mainly-Catholic areas of the province.[46] The crisis was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, and Ireland's involvement in it. The UK government abandoned the Amending Bill, and instead rushed through a new bill, the Suspensory Act 1914, suspending Home Rule for the duration of the war,[47] with the exclusion of Ulster still to be decided.[48]
By the end of the war (during which the 1916 Easter Rising had taken place), most Irish nationalists now wanted full independence rather than home rule. In September 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tasked a committee with planning another home rule bill. Headed by English unionist politician Walter Long, it was known as the 'Long Committee'. It decided that two devolved governments should be established—one for the nine counties of Ulster and one for the rest of Ireland—together with a Council of Ireland for the "encouragement of Irish unity".[49] Most Ulster unionists wanted the territory of the Ulster government to be reduced to six counties so that it would have a larger Protestant unionist majority, which they believed would guarantee its longevity. The six counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh comprised the maximum area unionists believed they could dominate.[50] The area that was to become Northern Ireland included counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, even though they had nationalist majorities in the 1918 Irish general election.[51]
Events overtook the government. In the 1918 Irish general election, the pro-independence Sinn Féin party won the overwhelming majority of Irish seats. Sinn Féin's elected members boycotted the British parliament and founded a separate Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann), declaring an independent Irish Republic covering the whole island. Many Irish republicans blamed the British establishment for the sectarian divisions in Ireland, and believed that Ulster unionism would fade once British rule was ended.[52] The British authorities outlawed the Dáil in September 1919,[53] and a guerrilla conflict developed as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began attacking British forces. This became known as the Irish War of Independence.[54]
Meanwhile, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 passed through the British parliament in 1920. It would divide Ireland into two self-governing UK territories: the six northeastern counties (Northern Ireland) being ruled from Belfast, and the other twenty-six counties (Southern Ireland) being ruled from Dublin. Both would have a shared Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who would appoint both governments and a Council of Ireland, which the UK government intended to evolve into an all-Ireland parliament.[55] The Act received royal assent that December, becoming the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It came into force on 3 May 1921,[56][57] partitioning Ireland and creating Northern Ireland. the 1921 Irish elections were held on 24 May, in which unionists won most seats in the Northern Ireland parliament. It first met on 7 June and formed its first devolved government, headed by Ulster Unionist Party leader James Craig. Irish nationalist members refused to attend. King George V addressed the ceremonial opening of the Northern parliament on 22 June.[56]
During 1920–22, in what became Northern Ireland, partition was accompanied by violence "in defence or opposition to the new settlement"[23] during The Troubles (1920–1922). The IRA carried out attacks on British forces in the north-east but was less active than in the rest of Ireland. Protestant loyalists attacked Catholics in reprisal for IRA actions. In the summer of 1920, sectarian violence erupted in Belfast and Derry, and there were mass burnings of Catholic property in Lisburn and Banbridge.[58] Conflict continued intermittently for two years, mostly in Belfast, which saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence between Protestants and Catholics, including rioting, gun battles, and bombings. Homes, businesses, and churches were attacked and people were expelled from workplaces and mixed neighbourhoods.[23] More than 500 were killed[24] and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them Catholics.[59] The British Army was deployed and the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) was formed to help the regular police. The USC was almost wholly Protestant. Members of the USC and regular police were involved in reprisal attacks on Catholic civilians.[60] A truce between British forces and the IRA was established on 11 July 1921, ending the fighting in most of Ireland. However, communal violence continued in Belfast, and in 1922 the IRA launched a guerrilla offensive along the new Irish border.[61]
The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed between representatives of the governments of the UK and the Irish Republic on 6 December 1921, laying out the process for the creation of the Irish Free State. Under the terms of the treaty, Northern Ireland would become part of the Free State unless its government opted out by presenting an address to the king, although in practice partition remained in place.[62]
The Irish Free State came into existence on 6 December 1922, and on the following day, the Parliament of Northern Ireland resolved to exercise its right to opt out of the Free State by making an address to King George V.[63] The text of the address was:
Most Gracious Sovereign, We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Senators and Commons of Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, having learnt of the passing of the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922, being the Act of Parliament for the ratification of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, do, by this humble Address, pray your Majesty that the powers of the Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland.[64]
Shortly afterwards, the Irish Boundary Commission was established to decide on the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. Owing to the outbreak of the Irish Civil War, the work of the commission was delayed until 1925. The Free State government and Irish nationalists hoped for a large transfer of territory to the Free State, as many border areas had nationalist majorities. Many believed this would leave the remaining Northern Ireland territory too small to be viable.[65] However, the commission's final report recommended only small transfers of territory, and in both directions. The Free State, Northern Ireland, and UK governments agreed to suppress the report and accept the status quo, while the UK government agreed that the Free State would no longer have to pay a share of the UK national debt.[66]
Northern Ireland's border was drawn to give it "a decisive Protestant majority". At the time of its creation, Northern Ireland's population was two-thirds Protestant and one-third Catholic.[20] Most Protestants were unionists/loyalists who sought to maintain Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom, while most Catholics were Irish nationalists/republicans who sought an independent United Ireland. There was mutual self-imposed segregation in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics such as in education, housing, and often employment.[67]
For its first fifty years, Northern Ireland had an unbroken series of Ulster Unionist Party governments.[68] Every prime minister and almost every minister of these governments were members of the Orange Order, as were all but 11 of the 149 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MPs elected during this time.[69] Almost all judges and magistrates were Protestant, many of them closely associated with the UUP. Northern Ireland's new police force was the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), which succeeded the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). It too was almost wholly Protestant and lacked operational independence, responding to directions from government ministers. The RUC and the reserve Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) were militarized police forces due to the perceived threat of militant republicanism. In 1936 the British advocacy group - the National Council for Civil Liberties characterised the USC as "nothing but the organised army of the Unionist party".[70] They "had at their disposal the Special Powers Act, a sweeping piece of legislation which allowed arrests without warrant, internment without trial, unlimited search powers, and bans on meetings and publications".[71] This 1922 Act was made permanent in 1933 and was not repealed until 1973.[72]
The Nationalist Party was the main political party in opposition to the UUP governments. However, its elected members often protested by abstaining from the Northern Ireland parliament, and many nationalists did not vote in parliamentary elections.[67] Other early nationalist groups which campaigned against partition included the National League of the North (formed in 1928), the Northern Council for Unity (formed in 1937) and the Irish Anti-Partition League (formed in 1945).[73]
The Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) of 1922 allowed for the altering of municipal and rural boundaries. This Act led to the gerrymandering of local election boundaries in the Nationalists majority cities of Derry City, Enniskillen, Omagh, Armagh and many other towns and rural districts. That action ensured Unionist control over local councils in areas where they were a minority.[74] The UUP governments, and some UUP-dominated local authorities, discriminated against the Catholic and Irish nationalist minority; especially by the gerrymandering of local electoral boundaries, the allocation of public housing, public sector employment, and policing, showing "a consistent and irrefutable pattern of deliberate discrimination against Catholics".[75] Many Catholics/Nationalists saw the gerrymandered local electoral boundaries and the abolishing of proportional representation as proof of government-sponsored discrimination. Until 1969 a system was in place called plural voting which was a practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. Property and business owners could vote both in the constituency where their property lay and that in which they lived, if the two were different. This system often resulted in one person being able to cast multiple votes.[76] Decades later, UUP First Minister of Northern Ireland, David Trimble, said that Northern Ireland under the UUP had been a "cold house" for Catholics.[77]
During World War II, recruitment to the British military was noticeably lower than the high levels reached during World War I. In June 1940, to encourage the neutral Irish state to join with the Allies, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill indicated to Taoiseach Éamon de Valera that the British government would encourage Irish unity, but believing that Churchill could not deliver, de Valera declined the offer.[78] The British did not inform the government of Northern Ireland that they had made the offer to the Dublin government, and de Valera's rejection was not publicised until 1970. Belfast was a key industrial city in the UK's war effort, producing ships, tanks, aircraft, and munitions. The unemployment that had been so persistent in the 1930s disappeared, and labour shortages appeared, prompting migration from the Free State. The city was thinly defended, and had only 24 anti-aircraft guns. Richard Dawson Bates, the Minister for Home Affairs, had prepared too late, assuming that Belfast was far enough away to be safe. The city's fire brigade was inadequate, and as the Northern Ireland government had been reluctant to spend money on air raid shelters, it only started to build them after the Blitz in London during the autumn of 1940. There were no searchlights in the city, which made shooting down enemy bombers more difficult. In April–May 1941, the Belfast Blitz began when the Luftwaffe launched a series of raids that were the most deadly seen outside London. Working-class areas in the north and east of the city were particularly hard hit, and over 1,000 people were killed and hundreds were seriously injured. Tens of thousands of people fled the city in fear of future attacks. In the final raid, Luftwaffe bombs inflicted extensive damage to the docks and the Harland & Wolff shipyard, closing it for six months. Half of the city's houses had been destroyed, highlighting the terrible slum conditions in Belfast, and about £20 million worth of damage was caused. The Northern Ireland government was criticised heavily for its lack of preparation, and Northern Ireland Prime Minister J. M. Andrews resigned. There was a major munitions strike in 1944.[79]
The Ireland Act 1949 gave the first legal guarantee that the region would not cease to be part of the United Kingdom without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
From 1956 to 1962, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out a limited guerrilla campaign in border areas of Northern Ireland, called the Border Campaign. It aimed to destabilize Northern Ireland and bring about an end to partition but failed.[80]
In 1965, Northern Ireland's Prime Minister Terence O'Neill met the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass. It was the first meeting between the two heads of government since partition.[81]
The Troubles, which started in the late 1960s, consisted of about 30 years of recurring acts of intense violence during which 3,254 people were killed[82] with over 50,000 casualties.[83] From 1969 to 2003 there were over 36,900 shooting incidents and over 16,200 bombings or attempted bombings associated with The Troubles.[31] The conflict was caused by escalating tensions between the Irish nationalist minority and the dominant unionist majority; Irish nationalists object to Northern Ireland staying within the United Kingdom.[84] From 1967 to 1972 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), which modelled itself on the US civil rights movement, led a campaign of civil resistance to anti-Catholic discrimination in housing, employment, policing, and electoral procedures. The franchise for local government elections included only rate-payers and their spouses, and so excluded over a quarter of the electorate. While the majority of disenfranchised electors were Protestant, Catholics were over-represented since they were poorer and had more adults still living in the family home.[85]
NICRA's campaign, seen by many unionists as an Irish republican front, and the violent reaction to it proved to be a precursor to a more violent period.[86] As early as 1969, armed campaigns of paramilitary groups began, including the Provisional IRA campaign of 1969–1997 which was aimed at the end of British rule in Northern Ireland and the creation of a United Ireland, and the Ulster Volunteer Force, formed in 1966 in response to the perceived erosion of both the British character and unionist domination of Northern Ireland. The state security forces – the British Army and the police (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) – were also involved in the violence. The UK Government's position is that its forces were neutral in the conflict, trying to uphold law and order in Northern Ireland and the right of the people of Northern Ireland to democratic self-determination. Republicans regarded the state forces as combatants in the conflict, pointing to the collusion between the state forces and the loyalist paramilitaries as proof of this. The "Ballast" investigation by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has confirmed that British forces, and in particular the RUC, did collude with loyalist paramilitaries, were involved in murder, and did obstruct the course of justice when such claims had been investigated,[87] although the extent to which such collusion occurred is still disputed.
As a consequence of the worsening security situation, the autonomous regional government for Northern Ireland was suspended in 1972. Alongside the violence, there was a political deadlock between the major political parties in Northern Ireland, including those who condemned the violence, over the future status of Northern Ireland and the form of government there should be within Northern Ireland. In 1973, Northern Ireland held a referendum to determine if it should remain in the United Kingdom, or be part of a united Ireland. The vote went heavily in favour (98.9%) of maintaining the status quo. Approximately 57.5% of the total electorate voted in support, but only 1% of Catholics voted following a boycott organised by the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).[88]
The Troubles were brought to an uneasy end by a peace process that included the declaration of ceasefires by most paramilitary organisations and the complete decommissioning of their weapons, the reform of the police, and the corresponding withdrawal of army troops from the streets and sensitive border areas such as South Armagh and Fermanagh, as agreed by the signatories to the Belfast Agreement (commonly known as the "Good Friday Agreement"). This reiterated the long-held British position, which had never before been fully acknowledged by successive Irish governments, that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom until a majority of voters in Northern Ireland decides otherwise. The Constitution of Ireland was amended in 1999 to remove a claim of the "Irish nation" to sovereignty over the entire island (in Article 2).[89]
The new Articles 2 and 3, added to the Constitution to replace the earlier articles, implicitly acknowledge that the status of Northern Ireland, and its relationships within the rest of the United Kingdom and with the Republic of Ireland, would only be changed with the agreement of a majority of voters in each jurisdiction. This aspect was also central to the Belfast Agreement which was signed in 1998 and ratified by referendums held simultaneously in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. At the same time, the UK Government recognised for the first time, as part of the prospective, the so-called "Irish dimension": the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent.[90] The latter statement was key to winning support for the agreement from nationalists. It established a devolved power-sharing government, the Northern Ireland Assembly, located on the Stormont Estate, which must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties. These institutions were suspended by the UK Government in 2002 after Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) allegations of spying by people working for Sinn Féin at the Assembly (Stormontgate). The resulting case against the accused Sinn Féin member collapsed.[91]
On 28 July 2005, the Provisional IRA declared an end to its campaign and has since decommissioned what is thought to be all of its arsenal. This final act of decommissioning was performed under the watch of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) and two external church witnesses. Many unionists, however, remained sceptical. The IICD later confirmed that the main loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Defence Association, UVF, and the Red Hand Commando, had decommissioned what is thought to be all of their arsenals, witnessed by former archbishop Robin Eames and a former top civil servant.[92]
Politicians elected to the Assembly at the 2003 Assembly election were called together on 15 May 2006 under the Northern Ireland Act 2006[93] to elect a First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and choose the members of an Executive (before 25 November 2006) as a preliminary step to the restoration of devolved government.
Following the election on 7 March 2007, the devolved government returned on 8 May 2007 with Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin deputy leader Martin McGuinness taking office as First Minister and deputy First Minister, respectively.[94] In its white paper on Brexit the United Kingdom government reiterated its commitment to the Belfast Agreement. Concerning Northern Ireland's status, it said that the UK Government's "clearly-stated preference is to retain Northern Ireland's current constitutional position: as part of the UK, but with strong links to Ireland".[95]
On 3 February 2022, Paul Givan resigned as first minister, which automatically resigned Michelle O'Neill as deputy first minister and collapsed the executive of Northern Ireland.[96] On 30 January 2024, leader of the DUP Jeffrey Donaldson announced that the DUP would restore an executive government on the condition that new legislation was passed by the UK House of Commons.[97]
The main political divide in Northern Ireland is between unionists, who wish to see Northern Ireland continue as part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists, who wish to see Northern Ireland unified with the Republic of Ireland, independent from the United Kingdom. These two opposing views are linked to deeper cultural divisions. Unionists are predominantly Ulster Protestant, descendants of mainly Scottish, English, and Huguenot settlers as well as Gaels who converted to one of the Protestant denominations. Nationalists are overwhelmingly Catholic and descend from the population predating the settlement, with a minority from the Scottish Highlands as well as some converts from Protestantism. Discrimination against nationalists under the Stormont government (1921–1972) gave rise to the civil rights movement in the 1960s.[98]
While some unionists argue that discrimination was not just due to religious or political bigotry, but also the result of more complex socio-economic, socio-political and geographical factors,[99] its existence, and the manner in which nationalist anger at it was handled, were a major contributing factor to the Troubles. The political unrest went through its most violent phase between 1968 and 1994.[100]
In 2007, 36% of the population defined themselves as unionist, 24% as nationalist, and 40% defined themselves as neither.[101] According to a 2015 opinion poll, 70% express a long-term preference of the maintenance of Northern Ireland's membership of the United Kingdom (either directly ruled or with devolved government), while 14% express a preference for membership of a united Ireland.[102] This discrepancy can be explained by the overwhelming preference among Protestants to remain a part of the UK (93%), while Catholic preferences are spread across several solutions to the constitutional question including remaining a part of the UK (47%), a united Ireland (32%), Northern Ireland becoming an independent state (4%), and those who "don't know" (16%).[103]
Official voting figures, which reflect views on the "national question" along with issues of the candidate, geography, personal loyalty, and historic voting patterns, show 54% of Northern Ireland voters vote for unionist parties, 42% vote for nationalist parties, and 4% vote "other". Opinion polls consistently show that the election results are not necessarily an indication of the electorate's stance regarding the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Most of the population of Northern Ireland is at least nominally Christian, mostly Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations. Many voters (regardless of religious affiliation) are attracted to unionism's conservative policies, while other voters are instead attracted to the traditionally leftist Sinn Féin and SDLP and their respective party platforms for democratic socialism and social democracy.[104]
For the most part, Protestants feel a strong connection with Great Britain and wish for Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. Many Catholics however, generally aspire to a United Ireland or are less certain about how to solve the constitutional question. Catholics have a slight majority in Northern Ireland, according to the latest Northern Ireland census. The make-up of the Northern Ireland Assembly reflects the appeals of the various parties within the population. Of the 90 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), 37 are unionists and 35 are nationalists (the remaining 18 are classified as "other").[105]
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement acts as a de facto constitution for Northern Ireland. Local government in Northern Ireland since 2015 has been divided between 11 councils with limited responsibilities.[106] The First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland are the joint heads of government of Northern Ireland.[107][108]
Since 1998, Northern Ireland has had devolved government within the United Kingdom, presided over by the Northern Ireland Assembly and a cross-community government (the Northern Ireland Executive). The UK Government and UK Parliament are responsible for