Ireland Information Guide , Irish, Counties, Facts, Statistics, Tourism, Culture, How

Northern Irelandlies in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It covers 14,139 square kilometres (5,459 square miles), and has a population of 1,685,000 (April 2001). The principal city is Belfast.

Northern Ireland was created in 1921 as a home-rule political entity, under the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, along with the nominal state of Southern Ireland, which was superceded almost immediately after its creation by the Irish Free State. When the latter achieved independence, Northern Ireland under the procedures laid out in the Anglo-Irish Treaty, 1921 declined to join and so remained part of the United Kingdom. 47% of the population is unionist and wishes to remain part of the United Kingdom, but a 41% minority, known as the nationalists want a re- United Ireland. The clashes between both sets of identity, and discrimination against nationalists by unionists, produced a violent struggle by minorities within both communities that ran from the late 1960s to the early 1990s and was known as The Troubles. As a consequence, self-government for Northern Ireland was suspended in 1972. Since the mid-1990s, the main paramilitary groups have observed an uneasy ceasefire.

There is no longer any official Flag of Northern Ireland, as the 'Red Hand Flag' was abolished along with the Parliament of Northern Ireland in 1972. Unionists tend to use the Union flag and sometimes the Red Hand Flag, while Nationalists typically use the national Flag of Ireland. Both sides also occasionally use the flags belonging to their political parties and other secular and religious organizations they belong to.[1] (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/symbols/flags.htm)

With its improved international reputation, Northern Ireland has recently witnessed rising numbers of tourists who come to appreciate the area's unique heritage. Attractions include cultural festivals, musical and artistic traditions, countryside and geographical sites of interest, pubs, welcoming hospitality and sports (especially golf and fishing).

**Northern Ireland** (English)
**Tuaisceart Éireann** (Irish)
**Northren Ireland** ((Ulster) Scots)

Official languages	English, Irish	Belfast
First Minister	suspended
Area - Total - % water	< />,>km² ?
Population - Total (2001) - Density	Ranked 4th 1,685,267 122/km²
NUTS 1	UKN
Establishment	Partition of Ireland, 1922
Currency	Pound Sterling (£) (GBP)
Time zone	UTC, Summer: +1 UTC (BST)
Calling Code	44 28 Also 048* from the Republic of Ireland*
International access code	00

Table of contents

1 Geographic Nomenclature

2 Geography and Climate

3 History

3.1 Early 20th century
3.2 Late 20th century
3.3 After the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement

4 Demographics and Politics

9 Recommended Reading List

10 External links

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Geographic Nomenclature

Unionists often incorrectly call Northern Ireland "Ulster" or "the Province"; nationalists often use the terms the "North of Ireland" and the "Six Counties". Ulster formed one of the historic provinces of the island of Ireland and consists of 9 counties. Three of these now form part of the Republic of Ireland. The remaining six counties became Northern Ireland:

These traditional counties are no longer used for local government purposes; instead there are 26 districts of Northern Ireland. The "six counties" remain in use for cultural purposes such as the GAA.

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Geography and Climate

Northern Ireland was covered by the ice sheet for most of the last ice age and on numerous previous occasions, the legacy of which can be seen in the extensive coverage of drumlins in Counties Fermanagh, Armagh, Antrim and particularly Down. The centrepiece of Northern Ireland's geography is Lough Neagh, at 392 km², the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles. A second extensive lake system is centred on Lower and Upper Lough Erne in Fermanagh.

There are substantial uplands in the Sperrin Mountains an extension of the Caledonian fold mountains with extensive gold deposits, granite Mourne Mountains and basalit Antrim Plateau, as well as smaller ranges in South Armagh and along the Fermanagh/Tyrone border. None of the hills is especially high, with Slieve Donard in the dramatic Mournes reaching 848 metres, Northern Ireland's highest point. The volcanic activity which created the Antrim Plateau also formed the eerily geometric pillars of the Giant's Causeway.

The Lower and Upper River Bann, River Foyle and River Blackwater form extensive fertile lowlands, with excellent arable land also found in North and East Down, although much of the hill country is marginal and suitable largely for animal husbandry.

The valley of the River Lagan is dominated by Belfast, whose metropolitan area includes over a third of the population of Northern Ireland, with heavy urbanisation and industrialisation along the Lagan Valley and both shores of Belfast Lough.

The whole of Northern Ireland has a temperate maritime climate, rather wetter in the west than the east although cloud cover is persistent across the region. The weather is unpredictable at all times of the year, and although the seasons are distinct they are considerably less pronounced than in interior Europe or the eastern seaboard on North America. Average daytime maximums in Belfast are 6.5˚C in January and 17.5˚C in July. The damp climate and extensive deforestation in the 16th and 17th Centuries results in much of the region being covered in rich green grassland.

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History

The area now known as Northern Ireland has had a diverse history. From serving as the bedrock of Irish nationalism in the era of the plantations of Queen Elizabeth and James I in other parts of Ireland, it became itself the subject of major planting of Scottish settlers after the Flight of the Earls in 1605 (when the native governing and military nationalist elite left en masse). Today, Northern Ireland comprises a diverse patchwork of community rivalries, represented in some areas by whole communities where lamp posts and some homes fly the Irish flag tricolour or the Union Flag, the symbol of their British identity, while even the kerbstones in less affluent areas get painted green-white-orange or red-white-blue, depending on whether a local community expresses nationalist/republican or unionist/loyalist sympathies.

For events before 1900 see History of Ireland.

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Early 20th century

From the late 19th Century it was clear that the British government would have to give some sort of self-rule to Ireland at some stage. The Irish Nationalist Party regularly held the balance of power in the British House of Commons in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, a position which it exploited with aplomb, and two bills granting home rule to Ireland were passed by the Commons in the 1886 and 1893 only to be vetoed by the House of Lords. With the passing of the Parliament Act by the Liberal Party government in 1910, which prohibited the Lords from blocking manifesto commitments, it was apparent that home rule would come probably come into force in the next five years.

The Unionists on both sides of what became the border had been agitating against home rule with great success since the 1880s, and on 28 September 1912, the leader of the Northern Unionists, James Craig, introuced the Solemn League and Covenant in Belfast, pledging to exclude Ulster from home rule, which was signed by 450,000 people, some in their own blood. While precipitating a split with the Unionist community in the South and West, which particularly sizeable in Dublin, it gave the Northern Unionists a credible goal to aim for.

A third Home Rule Bill was introduced by the Liberal minority government in 1912, and after heavy amendment by the House of Lords, the Commons agreed to allow Ulster to vote itself out of its provisions for six years in 1914. Throughout 1913 and 1914, paramilitary 'volunteer armies' were recruited and armed by both main ethnic groups, when Gavrilio Princip fatefully shot Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Home rule was delayed for the duration of the First World War, and both main political factions agreed to put their paramilitary forces under British command.

During the War tensions continued to mount in Ireland, particularly after the Easter Rising in 1916. When the volunteer militias returned from the front in 1918 and 1919, they came back as battle hardened soldiers rather than rag-tag yeomanry. In the British general election of 1918, Sinn Féin won all but one seat outside Ulster, while the Unionists won a majority inside it although there was significant Nationalist repesentation in Ulster, divided between Sinn Féin and the Irish Nationalist Party in an anti-vote splitting pact.

Guerilla war raged across Ireland in the aftermath of the election, and although lower in intensity in the North, it was complicated by involving not only the Irish Republican Army and the British Army but various Ulster Unionist factions. There is some electoral evidence from the period (notably the local government elections of 1920, the Irish Nationalist Party retained much more support in the North than in the rest of Ireland.

After the fourth and final Home Rule Bill in 1920, the six north-eastern counties of Ireland received self-government as Northern Ireland, although some Unionists such as Sir Edward Carson opposed it bitterly. The early years of the new state were barked by bitter violence, particularly in Belfast, with the IRA determined to reverse the partition of Ireland at all costs, and the Unionist authorities creating semi-state paramilitary groups and draconian emergency powers to put down the IRA. Many hundreds died in political violence, which gradually petered out after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922 and through 1923

Under successive Unionists the Northern Ireland Government Prime Ministers from Sir James Craig (later Lord Craigavon) practised a policy of wholesale discrimination against the nationalist/Roman Catholic minority. Gerrymandered towns and city boundaries rigged local government elections to ensure Protestant control of local councils, by packing Catholics into Catholic dominated wards rather than allowing Catholics to be given homes in Protestant wards, while dividing predominantly Protestant wards to create multiple Protestant-voting wards. Voting arrangements which gave commercial companies votes, and minimum income regulations also helped achieve similar ends. Disputes over local government gerrymandering were at the heart of the the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

In addition there was widespread discrimination in employment, particularly at senior levels in the public sector and in some sectors of the economy such as shipbuilding and heavy engineering. Perhaps most fatally, the abolition of Proportional Representation in 1929 meant that the structure of party politics gave the Ulster Unionist Party a continual sizeable majority in the Northern Ireland Parliament, although allegations of electoral malpractice are more difficult to sustain at this level than in local government. While Nationalist parties continued to retain the same number of seats than they had under Proportional Representation, the Northern Ireland Labour Party and various smaller leftist Unionist groups were smothered, and the area was ruled by the Unionist Party almost as a one-party state.

Though disputed for decades, many leaders of unionism now admit that Northern Ireland government in the period 1922-1972 was hardly inclusive. One prominent unionist leader, Nobel Peace Prize joint-winner, Ulster Unionist Leader and First Minister of Northern Ireland David Trimble, openly described Northern Ireland as having been a "cold place for Catholics."

Despite this, Northern Ireland stayed peaceful for most of the following five decades, except for some brief flurries of IRA activity during the Second World War and from 1956 to 1962, which had little support among the wider Catholic community, as they felt that it would not succeed. However Catholics were resentful towards the state from which they withdrew their consent, and Nationalist politics was sullen and defeatest. Meanwhile, the period saw an almost complete synthesis between the Ulster Unionist Party and the Protestant Orange Order, with even the very few Catholic Unionists being excluded from any position of political or civil authority outside a handful of Nationalist controlled councils.

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Late 20th century

In the 1960s, moderate Unionist prime minister Terence O'Neill (later Lord O'Neill of the Maine) tried to reform the system, but encountered wholesale opposition from extreme fundamentalist Protestant leaders like the Reverend Ian Paisley. The increasing pressures from nationalists for reform and from extreme Unionists for 'No surrender' led to the appearance of the civil rights movement under moderate figures such as John Hume and Austin Currie. In its early days it had some moderate Protestant support and membership, and also a considerable dose of student radicalism after Northern Ireland was swept up in the world-wide student revolts of 1968. Clashes between marchers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary led to increased communal strife, with elements both among the police and student radicals actively seeking to up the temperature, culminating in a violent attack by a Loyalist mob on a small Marxist student march at Burntollet, outside Derry on 4 January 1969. Wholescale violence errupted after an Apprentice Boys march through the staunchly nationalist Bogside area of Derry on 12 August 1969. The British army were sent to Northern Ireland by British Home Secretary, James Callaghan to protect nationalists from attack two days later on 14 August 1969. At first they received a warm welcome from Nationalists. However tensions rose throughout the following years, with an important milestone in the worsening relationship being the Falls Road Curfew of 3 July 1970.

After the introduction of internment without trial for suspected paramilitary crimes on 9 August 1971, even the most moderate Nationalists reacted by completely withdrawing their consent from the operation of the state. The SDLP members of the Northern Ireland Parliament withdrew from that body on 15 August and a widespread campaign of civil disobedience began. Tensions were ratcheted to a higher level after the murder in highly controversial circumstances of thirteen unarmed civilians in Derry by British paratroopers on 30 January 1972. Eyewitnesses and later enquiries cast grave doubts over British Government versions of events, though no soldiers were taken to account.

Throughout this period, the modern constellation of paramilitary organisations began to form. After Bloody Sunday, their full fury was unleashed. The appearance in 1969 of the Provisional IRA, a breakaway from the increasingly Marxist Official IRA, and a campaign of sectarian violence by Loyalist paramilitary groups like the Ulster Defence Association and others, brought Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. On 30 March of that year, the British government, unwilling to grant the Unionist Northern Ireland government more authoritarian special powers, and now convinced of its inability to restore order, abolished the Northern Ireland Parliament and introduced direct rule from Britain.

However, the British government held talks with various parties, including the IRA during 1972 and 1973. On 9 December 1973 after talks in Sunningdale, Berkshire, the Ulster Unionist Party, SDLP and Alliance Party of Northern Ireland reached the Sunningdale Agreement on a cross-community government for Northern Ireland , which took office on 1 January 1974. The IRA were unimpressed, increasing the tempo of their violence, while Loyalists were outraged at the participation of overt Nationalists in the government of Northern Ireland and at the cross-border Council of Ireland. Although the pro-Sunningdale parties had a clear majority in the new Northern Ireland Assembly, the failure of the pro-Agreement parties to co-ordinate their efforts in the British General Election of 29 February, combined with an IRA sponsored boycott by hard-line Republicans allowed anti-Sunningdale Unionists to take 51.1% of the vote and 11 of Northern Ireland's 12 seats in the UK House of Commons.

Emboldened by this, a coalition of anti-Agreement Unionist politicians and Loyalist paramilitaries began a general strike on 15 May. The strikers brought Northern Ireland to a standstill, and after Prime Minister Harold Wilson refused to send in troops to break the strike, the power sharing executive collapsed on 28 May.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, extremists on both sides carried out a series of brutal acts of mass murders, often involving or even targeting innocent civilians. The most notorious outrages included the Le Mon bombing and the Enniskillen bombing, carried out by republicans in an attempt to force political change through guerilla warfare. Loyalists were just as active, concentrating mainly on savage sectarian murders and intimidation of Catholics from their homes.

Some British politicians, notably former British Labour minister Tony Benn advocated British withdrawal from Ireland, but many opposed this policy, and called their prediction of the possible results of British withdrawal the Doomsday Scenario, depicting widespread communal strife. The worst fear envisaged a civil war which would engulf not just Northern Ireland, but the neighbouring Republic of Ireland and Scotland both of which had major links with either or both communities. Later, the feared possible impact of British Withdrawal gained the designation the Balkanisation of Northern Ireland after the violent break-up of Yugoslavia and the chaos that unleashed.

The level of violence declined from its early 1970s peak from 1976 onwards, stabilising at 50 to 100 deaths a year. The IRA framed 'spectaculars', particularly on mainland Britain and at British targets in Europe with a regular throb of attacks in Northern Ireland. Loyalists, while claiming a few high profile Republican casualties, principally targetted Catholics working in Protestant areas or attacked Catholic frequented pubs with what were euphamistically known as 'spray jobs' with automatic gunfire.

Various fitful political talks took place from then until the early 1990s, backed by schemes such as Rolling Devolution and 1975 saw a brief IRA ceasefire. The two events of real significance during this period, however, were the Hunger Strikes and the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

During the Hunger Strike (1981), the Republican movement gained its first taste of electoral politics with moderate electoral success both sides of the border, including the election of Bobby Sands to the House of Commons, convincing Republicans to adopt the armalite and ballot box strategy and take a gradually more political approach. The Anglo-Irish Agreement, essentially seen ny the British and Irish governments as a means to support the SDLP in its electoral struggle with Sinn Féin, had the effect of convincing many Unionists and Republicans that their ulimate political aims were unachieveable.

By the 1990s, the failure of the IRA campaign to win mass public support or achieve its aim of British Withdrawal, and in particular the public relations disaster of Enniskillen (when there were 11 fatalities among families attending a Remembrance Day ceremony), along with the replacement of the traditional Republican leadership of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh by Gerry Adams, saw a move away from armed conflict to political engagement.

This change from paramilitary to political means was part of a broader Northern Ireland peace process, which followed the appearance of new leaders in London (John Major) and Dublin (Albert Reynolds).

Increased government focus on the problems of Northern Ireland led, in 1993, to the two prime ministers signing the Downing Street Declaration. At the same time Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Féin, and John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party engaged in talks. A new leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, David Trimble, initially perceived as a hardliner, brought his party into all-party negotiations that in 1998 produced the Belfast Agreement, singed by eight parties on 10 April 1998, although crucially not involving the extremist Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party or the minority UK Unionist Party. A majority of both communities in Northern Ireland approved this Agreement, as did the people of the Republic of Ireland, both by referendum on 22 May 1998. The Republic amended its constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, to replace a claim it made to the territory of Northern Ireland with a recognition of Northern Ireland's right to exist and an acknowledgement of the nationalist desire for a united Ireland.

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After the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement

Under the Good Friday Agreement, properly known as the Belfast Agreement, voters elected a new Northern Ireland Assembly to form a Northern Irish parliament. Every party that reaches a specific level of support gains the right to name a member of its party to government and claim a ministry. Ulster Unionist party leader David Trimble became First Minister of Northern Ireland. The Deputy Leader of the SDLP, Seamus Mallon, became Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, though his party's new leader, Mark Durkan, subsequently replaced him. The Ulster Unionists, Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party each had ministers by right in the power-sharing assembly.

The Assembly and its Executive operated on a stop-start basis, with repeated disagreements about whether the IRA was fulfilling its commitments to decommission its weaponry, a Unionist precondition for sharing power with Sinn Féin that was not included in the Agreement, and also allegions from the PSNI's Special Branch that there was an IRA spy-ring operating in the heart of the civil service. Unionist parties kept changing their requirements for accepting nationalists as equal partners in order to avoid having to share power on an equal basis, while republicans prevaricated about a ceasefire as they did not trust unionists. Government is now once more run by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy and a British ministerial team answerable to him.

The changing climate in Northern Ireland was represented by the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the Parliament Buildings in Stormont, where she met nationalist ministers from the SDLP as well as unionist ministers, and spoke of the rights of those Northern Irish people who perceive themselves as Irish to be treated as equal citizens with those who regard themselves as British. Similarly, on visits to Northern Ireland, the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, met with unionist ministers and with the local Lord Lieutenant of each county, the representative of the Queen.

However, the Assembly elections of 30 November 2003 saw Sinn Féin and the DUP emerge as the largest parties in each ethnic bloc, making a restoration of the devolved institutions more difficult to achieve due to the DUP's traditional stance of avoiding any sort of communication with any of their opponents.

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Demographics and Politics

The vast majority of the population of Northern Ireland identifies with one of two different ethnic groups, unionists and nationalists. Both communities are often described by their predominant religious attachments, particularly by media outside Northern Ireland. Unionists are predominantly Protestant (the major Protestant faith is Presbyterianism, the second in terms of size is the Church of Ireland), while nationalists are predominantly Roman Catholic. However contrary to widespread belief, not all Roman Catholics necessarily support nationalism, and not all Protestants necessarily support unionism. It is also important to note that, in parallel with other parts of Europe, the proportion of the population practising their religious beliefs has fallen dramatically in recent decades, particularly among Catholics and adherents of mainstream Protestant denominations. This has not necessarily resulted in a weakening of communal feeling.

Once established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, Northern Ireland was structured geographically so as to have a unionist majority, unionist fears as to what would happen to them forming the basis for their opposition to a united Ireland, which led to creation of the two Irish states. However the Roman Catholic population has increased in percentage terms within Northern Ireland, while the Presbyterian and Church of Ireland population percentages have decreased.

The religious affiliations, based on census returns, have changed as follows between 1961 and 2002:

**Religious Affiliations in Northern Ireland 1961-2001**
Religions	1961	1991	2001
Roman Catholic	34.9%	38.4%	40.3%
Presbyterian	29.0%	21.4%	20.7%
Church of Ireland	24.2%	17.7%	15.3%
Other Religions	9.3%	11.5%	9.9%
Not Stated	2.0%	7.3%	9.0%
None	0.0%	3.8%	5.0%

Most Northern Irish Catholics support reunification of Ireland, although opinion polls have shown a sizeable minority who are prepared to tolerate remaining part of the UK, usually while continuing to support nationalist political parties. This proportion has slowly but steadily declined over the past fifteen years to around 20% in most polls. The proportion of Protestants who wish to join the Republic is smaller, at 3-5%, but stable. There are also considerable numbers of people, especially Catholics, who give ambiguous answers to questions about the future constitutional status of Northern Ireland.

While elections in Northern Ireland are often characterised as mini-referenda on the constitutional question, this is too simplistic an analysis. Voters may also perceive voting to be about strengthening the hand of their section of the community within Northern Ireland, or about gaining advantage for their social class.

Generally speaking, one can characterise the party system in Northern Ireland as a composite of two overlapping party systems. Nationalists choose between the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Sinn Féin, along with a cluster of smaller non-aligned parties such as the Alliance Party and the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition. Unionists choose between the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the above mentioned non-aligned parties and some smaller, often paramilitary linked, unionist parties.

Sinn Féin are a radical socialist revolutionary party, theoretically committed to espousing an all-Ireland Socialist Republic, and linked with the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Traditionally the party of the urban Catholic working-class and a number of rural areas, since the IRA ceasefires of the mid-[1990s]], it has expanded its base considerably, and has over taken the long dominant SDLP in terms of share of the vote. It is the fastest growing party in Ireland, as it successfully fields candidates in the Republic as well. The experience of government has also blunted the edge of the party's revolutionary enthusiams. Sinn Fein's MEPs sit in the European United Left - Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament although are not full members of it.

The SDLP are a nominally social democratic party which is a full member of the Party of European Socialists and Socialist International. However, as the Northern Irish party system is not based on socio-economic divisions, it inevitably attracts a wider spectrum of opinion and has a middle-class support base. The SDLP supports Irish reunification, but rejects utterly the use of violence as a means to that end. The SDLP has lost considerable support in the past decade, and there seems to be a struggle within the party between those who wish to see it adopt a post-Nationalist agenda and those who wish to move onto more Nationalist ground to take on Sinn Féin.

Similarly, on the Unionist side of the political spectrum, the more radical DUP has overtaken the traditionally dominant Ulster Unionists in recent elections. The Ulster Unionists were historically a cross-class massenpartei who formed the government of Northern Ireland from its creation until 1972, although since the rise of the DUP in the 1970s their support has been more middle-class. Until 1972 the UUP’s members of the House of Commons took the Conservative Party whip, although for the past 32 years they have sat as a party in their own right. The UUP’s member of the European Parliament belongs to the European People's Party group.

The DUP are a more complex mixture than the other major parties – combining support from narrow minded rural evangelicals and from urban, secular, working-class voters. The party is firmly to the right on issues such as abortion, capital punishment, European integration and equal opportunities, although the party seems to be moderating its stance on gay rights. Conversely, the DUP often support social programmes which benefit their working class or agricultural base, for example, free public transport for the elderly and European Union agricultural subsidies. The DUP have grown in recent years as they are the only major party to oppose the Good Friday Agreement. Their MEP sits as an Independent in the European Parliament, although is perceived to be close to the Independence & Democracy group.

The smaller Progressive Unionist Party and New Ulster Political Research Group are linked with the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association respectively. The UK Unionist Party is essentially a one-man show led by Robert McCartney MP.

Among the cross-community parties, the tiny Alliance Party draws its support mainly from middle-class professionals in the suburbs of Belfast. It professes to be the only party which does not base its political stance around the constitutional question, and is a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party and Liberal International.

The future of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition is in doubt after the lost both of their seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. This feminist party drew support predominantly from middle-class professionals, and not exclusively from women, particularly among those working in the public or voluntary sectors.

Other parties who contest elections in Northern Ireland include the Irish Green Party, and the Workers Party.

There are also two tiny parties seeking independence for Northern Ireland, although this is often perceived to be an ethnically Protestant or Unionist ideal with almost no real support.

Some commentators believe there are indications that the religious and ethnic basis of the party system may start to disintegrate. For example, in the 1998-2003 Assembly, there was a Catholic member of the Ulster Unionist Party]]. The SDLP have had a number of Protestant representatives in the past. However, these tend to be one-off events, which have occurred periodically throughout Northern Ireland’s history without setting a trend – cf. Sir Denis Henry in the early part of the 20th Century. Sinn Fein has two Protestant councillors - one a former unionist. In any event, social class is an important part of competition within the main ethnic political blocs, and class based party structures in other established democracies have weakened since the end of the Cold War. Since the beginning of the peace process, the non-ethnic parties have declined, while the more radical Sinn Féin and DUP have prospered.

Optimists counter that, in the long-term, as the constitutional question may become less relevant due to the emergence of the European Union, and therefore a less sectarian political system may develop.

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Languages

The dialect of English spoken in Northern Ireland shows heavy influence by that of Scotland, thereby giving it a distinct accent compared to other forms of Hiberno-English, along with the use of such Scots words as wee for 'little' and ay for 'yes'. Some jocularly call this version of Hiberno-English phonetically by the name Norn Iron. There are minute differences in pronunciation between Protestants and Catholics, the best known of which is the letter h, which Protestants tend to pronounce as "aitch", as in British English, and Catholics tend to pronounce as haitch as in Hiberno-English. However, geography is a much more important determinant of dialect than ethnic background. English is by far the most widely spoken language in Northern Ireland. Small pockets of Irish speaking remain, and the national resurgance of the native tongue, while far too small to ever challenge English again, flourishes in west Belfast.

Under the Good Friday Agreement,the Irish and a the local dialect often called [[Ulster Scots language|Scots] have official recognition on a par with that of English. This was a political move to simulate equality, as some extreme elements within the unionist community sought to claim that the local English dialect / accent was their own "language". Traditionally, the use of the Irish language in Northern Ireland has met with the considerable suspicion of Unionists, who associated it with the overwhelmingly Catholic Republic of Ireland, and later with republicans.

Ulster Scots comprises varieties of the Scots language spoken in Northern Ireland. As stated, some claim it is a separate language, descended from Scots in Scotland, whereas others question whether it is a separate language from English at all, or simply a collection of local dialects of Scottish and Northern Ireland English.

Chinese and Urdu are also spoken by Northern Ireland's Chinese and Asian communities. Given the size of the Chinese community in Northern Ireland, Chinese is now the second most widely spoken language, according to the most recent census returns.

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