Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ]; Ulster Scots: Norlin Airlann) is a constituent unit of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the northeast of the island of Ireland. It is variously described as a country, province, region, or "part" of the United Kingdom, amongst other terms. Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the island's total population and about 3% of the UK's population. Established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland Assembly holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the British government. Northern Ireland co-operates with the Republic of Ireland in some areas, and the Agreement granted the Republic the ability to "put forward views and proposals" with "determined efforts to resolve disagreements between the two governments".

History of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom (although it is also described by official sources as a province or a region), situated in the northeast 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 and two counties, Fermanagh and Tyrone, which had slight Irish nationalist majorities (of 53.6% and 54.6% respectively in the 1918 election). The remaining three Ulster counties with larger nationalist majorities were not included. In large part unionists, at least in the northeast, supported its creation while nationalists were opposed.

Resistance to Home Rule

From the late 19th century, the majority of people living in Ireland wanted the British government to grant some form of self-rule to Ireland. The Irish Nationalist Party sometimes held the balance of power in the House of Commons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a position from which it sought to gain Home Rule, which would have given Ireland autonomy in internal affairs, without breaking up the United Kingdom. Two bills granting Home Rule to Ireland were passed by the House of Commons in 1886 and 1893, but rejected by the House of Lords. With the passing of the Parliament Act 1911 by the Liberal Party government (which reduced the powers of the Lords from striking down parliamentary Bills to delaying their implementation for two years) it was apparent that Home Rule would probably come into force in the next five years. The Home Rule Party had been campaigning for this for almost fifty years.

Northern Ireland (European Parliament constituency)

Northern Ireland is a constituency of the European Parliament. Since 1979, it has elected three MEPs using the Single Transferable Vote, making it the only constituency in the United Kingdom to not use party list proportional representation.

Boundaries

The constituency covers the entirety of Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom.

Members of the European Parliament

Note: The columns in this table are used only for presentational purposes, and no significance should be attached to the order of columns. For details of the order in which seats were won at each election, see the detailed results of that election.

2014

Ten candidates stood in the election.

2009

2004

Gilliland's candidacy was supported by Alliance, Workers' Party, Labour and others.

1999

1994

Campion's candidacy, with the ballot paper description 'Peace Coalition', was supported by Democratic Left, the Greens and some Labour groups.

Kerr appeared on the ballot paper with the description 'Independent Ulster'.

Local government in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is divided into 11 districts for local government purposes. In Northern Ireland, local councils do not carry out the same range of functions as those in the rest of the United Kingdom; for example they have no responsibility for education, road building or housing (although they do nominate members to the advisory Northern Ireland Housing Council). Their functions include waste and recycling services, leisure and community services, building control and local economic and cultural development. They are not planning authorities, but are consulted on some planning applications. The collection of rates is handled by the Land and Property Services agency.

Local Government Districts

Composition of District Councils

History

The current pattern of 11 local government districts was established on 1 April 2015, as a result of the reform process that started in 2005.

The previous pattern of local government in Northern Ireland, with 26 councils, was established in 1973 by the Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 and the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 to replace the previous system established by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. The system was based on the recommendations of the Macrory Report, of June 1970, which presupposed the continued existence of the Government of Northern Ireland to act as a regional-level authority.

Ireland (disambiguation)

Ireland usually refers to:

Ireland may also refer to:

Former political arrangements of Ireland

Ireland, Bedfordshire

Coordinates: 52°03′36″N 0°20′54″W / 52.06002°N 0.34836°W / 52.06002; -0.34836

Ireland is a hamlet in the civil parish of Southill, Bedfordshire, England.

External links

Media related to Ireland, Bedfordshire at Wikimedia Commons

History of Ireland (1691–1801)

The history of Ireland from 1691–1801 was marked by the dominance of the Protestant Ascendancy. These were Anglo-Irish families of the Anglican Church of Ireland, whose English ancestors had settled Ireland in the wake of its conquest by England and colonisation in the Plantations of Ireland, and now owned most of the land. Many were absentee landlords based in England, but others lived full-time in Ireland and increasingly identified as Irish. (See Early Modern Ireland 1536-1691). During this time, Ireland was a theoretically autonomous Kingdom with its own Parliament; in reality it was a client state controlled by the King of Great Britain and supervised by his cabinet in London. The great majority of its population, Roman Catholics, were excluded from power and land ownership under the Penal Laws. The second-largest group, the Presbyterians in Ulster, owned land and businesses but could not vote and had no political power. The period begins with the defeat of the Catholic Jacobites in the Williamite War in Ireland in 1691 and ends with the Acts of Union 1800, which formally annexed Ireland in a United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 and dissolved the Irish Parliament.