NORTHERN IRELAND IS A DIFFERENT COUNTRY
The island of Ireland was once the longest-held colony of Great Britain. Unlike its Celtic cousins, Scotland and Wales, Ireland has always been distant from London—a distance due as much to its Catholicism as to the Irish Sea.
Four hundred years ago, Protestant settlers from England and Scotland were strategically “planted” in Catholic Ireland to help assimilate the island into the British economy. In 1620, the dominant English powerbase in London first felt entitled to call both islands—Ireland as well as Britain—the “British Isles” on maps (a geographic label that irritates Irish Nationalists to this day). These Protestant settlers established their own cultural toehold on the island, laying claim to the most fertile land. Might made right, and God was on their side. Meanwhile, the underdog Catholic Irish held strong to their Gaelic culture on their ever-diminishing, boggy, rocky farms.
Over the centuries, British rule hasn’t been easy. By the beginning of the 20th century, the sparse Protestant population could no longer control the entire island. When Ireland won its independence in 1921 (after a bloody guerrilla war against British rule), 26 of the island’s 32 counties became the Irish Free State, ruled from Dublin with dominion status in the British Commonwealth—similar to Canada’s level of sovereignty. In 1949, these 26 counties left the Commonwealth and became the Republic of Ireland, severing all political ties with Britain. Meanwhile, the six remaining northeastern counties—the only ones with a Protestant majority who considered themselves British—chose not to join the Irish Free State and remained part of the UK.
But embedded within these six counties—now joined as the political entity called Northern Ireland—was a large, disaffected Irish (mostly Catholic) minority who felt they’d been sold down the river by the drawing of the new international border. Their political opponents were the “Unionists”—Protestant British eager to defend the union with Britain, who were primarily led by two groups: the long-established Orange Order, and the military muscle of the newly mobilized Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). This was countered on the Irish Catholic side by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who wanted all 32 of Ireland’s counties to be united in one Irish nation—their political goals were “Nationalist.”
In World War II, the Republic stayed neutral while the North enthusiastically supported the Allied cause—winning a spot close to London’s heart. Derry (a.k.a. Londonderry) became an essential Allied convoy port, while Belfast lost more than 800 civilians during four Luftwaffe bombing raids in 1941. After the war, the split between North and South seemed permanent, and Britain invested heavily in Northern Ireland to bring it solidly into the UK fold.
In the Republic of Ireland (the South), where 94 percent of the population was Catholic and only 6 percent Protestant, there was a clearly dominant majority. But in the North, at the time it was formed, Catholics were a sizable 35 percent of the population—enough to demand attention. To maintain the status quo, Protestants considered certain forms of anti-Catholic discrimination necessary. It was this discrimination that led to the Troubles, the conflict that filled headlines from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.
Four hundred years ago (during the Reformation), this was a fight over Protestant and Catholic religious differences. But over the last century, the conflict has been not about faith, but about politics: Will Northern Ireland stay part of the UK, or become part of the Republic of Ireland? The indigenous Irish of Northern Ireland, who generally want to unite with Ireland, happen to be Catholic (like their cousins to the south). The descendants of the Scottish and English settlers, who generally want to remain part of Britain, happen to be Protestant (like their beloved monarch).
Official Name: Since Northern Ireland is not an independent state, there is no official country name. Some call it Ulster (although historically that has included three counties that today lie on the Republic’s side of the border), while others label it the Six Counties. Population-wise, it’s the smallest country of the United Kingdom (the other three are England, Wales, and Scotland).
Population: Northern Ireland’s 1.8 million people are about 45 percent Protestant (mostly Presbyterian and Anglican) and 40 percent Catholic. Another 5 percent profess different religions, and 10 percent claim no religious ties. English is far and away the chief language, though Irish Gaelic is also spoken in staunchly Nationalist Catholic communities.
Despite the country’s genetic homogeneity, the population is highly segregated along political, religious, and cultural lines. Roughly speaking, the eastern seaboard is more Unionist, Protestant, and of English-Scottish heritage, while the south and west (bordering the Republic of Ireland) are Nationalist, Catholic, and of Irish descent. Cities are often clearly divided between neighborhoods of one group or the other. Early in life, locals learn to identify the highly symbolic (and highly charged) colors, jewelry, music, names, accents, and vocabulary that distinguish the cultural groups.
Latitude and Longitude: 54°N and 5°W. It’s as far north as parts of the Alaskan panhandle.
Area: 5,400 square miles (about the size of Connecticut), constituting a sixth of the island. Northern Ireland includes 6 of the island’s traditional 32 counties.
Geography: Northern Ireland is shaped roughly like a doughnut, with the UK’s largest lake in the middle (Lough Neagh, 150 square miles and a prime eel fishery). The terrain comprises gently rolling hills of green grass, rising to the 2,800-foot Slieve Donard. The weather is temperate, cloudy, moist, windy, and hard to predict.
Biggest Cities: Belfast, the capital, has 300,000 residents. Half a million people—nearly one in three Northern Irish—inhabit the greater Belfast area. Derry (called Londonderry by Unionists) has 95,000 people.
Economy: Northern Ireland’s economy is more closely tied to the UK than to the Republic of Ireland. Sectarian violence has held back growth, and the economy gets subsidies from the UK and the EU. Traditional agriculture (potatoes and grain) is fading fast, though modern techniques and abundant grassland make Northern Ireland a major producer of sheep, cows, and grass seed. Modern software and communications companies are replacing traditional manufacturing. Shipyards are rusty relics, and the linen industry is now threadbare; both are victims of cheaper labor available in Asia.
Currency: Northern Ireland uses not the euro, but the pound (£).
Exchange rate: £1 = about $1.50.
Government: Northern Ireland is not a self-governing nation, but is part of the UK, ruled from London by Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Theresa May, and represented in Parliament by 18 elected Members of Parliament. For 50 years (1922-1972), Northern Ireland was granted a great deal of autonomy and self-governance, known as “Home Rule.” The current National Assembly (108-seat Parliament)—after an ineffective decade of political logjams—has recently begun to show signs of rejuvenation.
Politics are dominated, of course, by the ongoing debate between Unionists (who want to preserve the union with the UK) and Nationalists (who want to join the Republic of Ireland). Two high-profile and controversial figures have been at opposite ends of this debate: the late firebrand Reverend Ian Paisley for the Unionists; and assassination-attack survivor Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA (who now serves in the Republic of Ireland’s parliament). In a hopeful development in the spring of 2007, the two allowed themselves to be photographed together across a negotiation table (a moment both had once sworn would never happen) as London returned control of the government to Belfast.
Flag: The official flag of Northern Ireland is the Union flag of the UK. But you’ll also see the green, white, and orange Irish tricolor (waved by Nationalists) and the Northern Irish flag (white with a red cross and a red hand at its center), which is used by Unionists (see “The Red Hand of Ulster” sidebar on here).
Partly inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement in America—beamed into Irish living rooms by the new magic of television news—in the 1960s, the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland began a nonviolent struggle to end discrimination, advocating for better jobs and housing. Extremists polarized issues, and demonstrations—also broadcast on TV news—became violent. Unionists were afraid that if the island became one nation, the relatively poor Republic of Ireland would drag down the comparatively affluent North, and that the high percentage of Catholics would spell repression for the Protestants. As Unionist Protestants and Nationalist Catholics clashed in 1969, the British Army entered the fray. Their role, initially a peacekeeping one, gradually evolved into acting as muscle for the Unionist government. In 1972, a tragic watershed year, more than 500 people died as combatants moved from petrol bombs to guns, and a new, more violent IRA emerged. In that 30-year (1968-1998) chapter of the struggle for an independent and united Ireland, more than 3,000 people were killed.
A 1985 agreement granted Dublin a consulting role in the Northern Ireland government. Unionists bucked this idea, and violence escalated. That same year, Belfast City Hall draped a huge, defiant banner under its dome, proclaiming, Belfast Says No.
In 1994, the banner came down. In the 1990s—with Ireland’s membership in the EU, the growth of its economy, and the weakening of the Catholic Church’s influence—the consequences of a united Ireland became slightly less threatening to the Unionists. Also in 1994, the IRA declared a cease-fire, and the Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) followed suit.
The Nationalists wanted British troops out of Northern Ireland, while the Unionists demanded that the IRA turn in its arms. Optimists hailed the signing of a breakthrough peace plan in 1998, called the “Good Friday Accord” by Nationalists, or the “Belfast Agreement” by Unionists. This led to the release of political prisoners on both sides in 2000—a highly emotional event.
Recently, additional progress has taken place on both fronts. The IRA finally “verifiably put their arms beyond use” in 2005, and backed the political peace process. In 2009, most Loyalist paramilitary groups did the same. Meanwhile, British Army surveillance towers were dismantled in 2006, and the army formally ended its 38-year-long Operation Banner campaign in 2007.
A tiny splinter group of stubborn IRA diehards (calling themselves the “Real IRA”) continues to smolder. Their efforts at publicity are roundly condemned not only by hard-line Unionists, but also by former IRA leaders like government minister Martin McGuinness and his Sinn Fein party, who now prefer to pursue their Nationalist goals through the democratic process.
In 2010, the peace process was jolted forward by a surprisingly forthright apology offered by then British Prime Minister David Cameron, who expressed regret for the British Army’s offenses on Bloody Sunday (see sidebar on here). The apology was prompted by the Saville Report—the results of an investigation conducted by the UK government as part of the Good Friday Accord. It found that the 1972 shootings of Nationalist civil-rights marchers on Bloody Sunday by British soldiers was “unjustified” and the victims innocent (to the intense relief of the victims’ families, who had fought since 1972 to clear their loved ones’ names).
Major hurdles to a lasting peace persist, but downtown checkpoints and “bomb-damage clearance sales” have been gone for decades. In 2013, the G8 leaders of eight of the largest economies in the world (US President Barack Obama, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel to name a few) chose serene, lake-splattered County Fermanagh to hold their annual summit.
Today, more tourists than ever are venturing north to Belfast and Derry, and cruise-ship crowds disembark in Belfast to board charter buses that fan out to visit the Giant’s Causeway (see here) and Old Bushmills Distillery (see here).
A generation ago, Northern Ireland was a sadly contorted corner of the world. On my first visit, I remember thinking that even the name of this region sounded painful (“Ulster” sounded to me like a combination of “ulcer” and “blister”).
Today tourists in Northern Ireland are no longer considered courageous (or reckless). When locals spot you with a map and a lost look on your face, they’re likely to ask, “Wot yer lookin fer?” in their distinctive Northern accent. They’re not suspicious of you, but rather trying to help you find your way. You’re safer in Belfast than in many other UK cities—and far safer, statistically, than in most major US cities. You have to look for trouble to find it here. Just don’t seek out spit-and-sawdust pubs in working-class neighborhoods and spew simplistic and naive opinions about sensitive local topics.
Tourists notice the tension mainly during the “marching season” (Easter-Aug, peaking in early July). July 12—“the Twelfth”—is traditionally the most confrontational day of the year in the North, when proud Protestant Unionist Orangemen march to celebrate their Britishness and their separate identity from the Republic of Ireland (often through staunchly Nationalist Catholic neighborhoods). Lie low if you stumble onto any big Orange parades.
Ulster (one of Ireland’s four ancient provinces) consists of nine counties in the northern part of the island of Ireland. Six of these make up Northern Ireland (pronounced “Norn Iron” by locals), while three counties remain part of the Republic.
Unionists—and the more hardline, working-class Loyalists—want the North to remain in the UK. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the political party representing moderate Unionist views, is currently led by Mike Nesbitt. (Nobel Peace Prize co-winner David Trimble led the UUP from 1995 to 2005.) The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), led by First Minister Arlene Foster and supported by parliamentarian Jeffrey Donaldson, takes a harder stance in defense of Unionism. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), and the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) are the Loyalist paramilitary organizations mentioned most frequently in newspapers and on spray-painted walls.
Nationalists—and the more hardline, working-class Republicans—want a united and independent Ireland ruled by Dublin. The Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP), founded by Nobel Peace Prize co-winner John Hume and currently led by Colum Eastwood, is the moderate political party representing Nationalist views. Sinn Fein (shin fayn), led by Gerry Adams (working closely with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness), takes a harder stance in defense of Nationalism. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is the Nationalist paramilitary organization (linked with Sinn Fein) mentioned most often in the press and in graffiti. The Alliance Party, led by David Ford, wants to bridge the gap between Unionists and Nationalists.
To gain more insight into the complexity of the Troubles, the 90-minute documentary Voices from the Grave provides an excellent overview (easy to find on YouTube). Also check out the University of Ulster’s informative and evenhanded Conflict Archive at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/index.html.
The border is almost invisible. But when you leave the Republic of Ireland and enter Northern Ireland, you are crossing an international border (although you don’t have to flash your passport). The 2016 British referendum vote to leave the EU may change the way this border crossing is handled in the future, but it’s still too early to tell.
Gas is often a little cheaper in the Republic of Ireland than in Northern Ireland (so fill up before crossing the border). Meanwhile, groceries and dental procedures are cheaper in the North (put off that root canal until you hit Belfast). These price differences create a lively daily shopping trade for those living near the border.
You won’t use euros here; Northern Ireland issues its own Ulster pound, which, like the Scottish pound, is interchangeable with the English pound (€1 = about £0.75; £1 = about $1.50). Some establishments near the border may take euros, but at a lousy exchange rate. So keep any euros for your return to the Republic, and get pounds from an ATM inside Northern Ireland instead. And if you’re heading to Britain next, it’s best to change your Ulster pounds into English ones (free at any bank in Northern Ireland, England, Wales, or Scotland).