History of Northern Ireland

History Of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is today 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 north-east of the island of Ireland, having been 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 Fermanagh and Tyrone, two of the five Ulster counties which had nationalist majorities. In large part unionists, at least in the northeast, supported its creation while nationalists were opposed. Subsequently, on 6 December 1922, the whole island of Ireland became an independent dominion known as the Irish Free State but Northern Ireland immediately exercised its right to opt out of the new dominion.

Read more about History Of Northern Ireland:  Resistance To Home Rule, 1916 Rising and Aftermath, Partition, Early Years of Home Rule, 1925 To 1965, The Troubles, The Good Friday Agreement and Beyond

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    “For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
    —Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)

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    —Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

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    —Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)

    “There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations.... They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”
    —Patrick Henry Pearse (1879–1916)