Northern Ireland, a province created by the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, made up of the six Ulster counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone, and retained within the United Kingdom after the rest of Ireland achieved dominion status by the Anglo‐Irish treaty of 1921. Following the successful resistance of Ulster unionists to home rule in 1911–14, it was only the separation of the predominantly Protestant segment of Ulster in 1920 that made it politically possible for a Conservative‐dominated British coalition government to reach agreement with Sinn Féin on constitutional arrangements for the south. Although the Ulster Unionists sacrificed the remaining three counties of Ulster with their significant Protestant minorities, the new six‐county province included a reluctant Catholic minority amounting to more than one‐third of its population (which by the 1990s was to rise to more than two‐fifths). After some abortive attempts at minority protection through the Craig–Collins pacts, the British government gave the Unionists unequivocal support: in effect those who had objected so strongly to home rule under Dublin in 1914 were given an extended opportunity to run the north's divided society. The Unionists had wanted initially to be governed directly from London, but in 1921 accepted a devolved parliament in Belfast and came quickly to like it.

While Unionist governments delivered stability in Northern Ireland British governments of all parties let them get on with it: when this stability disappeared after 1968 the dissolution of the Northern Ireland parliament quickly followed. After 1972 Northern Ireland retained a devolved administration, but politically it was governed by direct rule from London, until a new form of self‐government was attempted in 1998. Although the constitutional arrangements of 1921–72 failed to achieve lasting or deep‐rooted communal harmony, they do represent the most sustained attempt at devolved regional government ever attempted in the United Kingdom.

The Northern Ireland parliament, created under the 1920 act, was opened by King George V in Belfast city hall on 22 June 1921, following elections to a ‘House of Commons’ on Empire Day, 24 May. It later moved to Assembly's College before occupying the imposing purpose‐built premises at Stormont (which became the standard way of referring to the Northern Ireland parliament or government), on the edge of the city, in November 1932. Partly deriving from the legislation, partly as a result of decisions taken by the first prime minister, Sir James Craig, Stormont followed the Westminster model very closely. The main differences were that the body was in practice part‐time, meeting for only a couple of months each year, and that government ministers were entitled to speak in both the House of Commons and the upper house or ‘Senate’. This consisted of the lord mayors of Belfast and Derry, who sat ex officio, and of 24 other members elected by the House of Commons. Not surprisingly, it failed to establish a reputation as an effective revising chamber. There was also a governor, representing the crown.

Returned to the first House of Commons in 1921 were 40 Unionists, 6 Nationalists, and 6 Sinn Féiners, a government majority of 28. Although the number of Unionists was sometimes reduced by challenges from the Northern Ireland Labour Party and other minor parties, only in 1925 did the party's overall majority fall below 20. Soon after the government replaced proportional representation based on nine multi‐member constituencies with first‐past‐the‐post elections in 48 single seaters; PR was retained in the four‐seat Queen's University constituency, which survived until 1968. No nationalist members took their seats prior to 1925, and organized nationalist abstention occurred frequently between 1932 and 1945. The system of majoritarian democracy, though based closely on the Westminster model, operated in the circumstances of Northern Ireland's divided society to produce a one‐party state, in which the interests of the state and the interests of the Unionist Party became dangerously intertwined. In local government, until 1973, almost 100 separate authorities operated, including an upper tier of six county councils. The local government franchise was restricted to ratepayers, and permitted multiple votes for business voters. After 1946 this was out of line with practice in Britain, where almost all adults were enfranchised compared with less than 80 per cent in Belfast (1966). Universal suffrage in local government elections was a major issue for the civil rights movement, and was attained in 1972; in the following year local government was restructured into a single tier of 26 district councils, now with far more limited powers than was the case in Britain.

The devolved powers of the Northern Ireland parliament included all major aspects of domestic policy except major taxation. By ‘the convention’ operated at Westminster, members of the United Kingdom parliament were effectively precluded from debating the internal affairs of Northern Ireland except on very isolated occasions. Defence matters, however, were reserved to the Westminster parliament (including the decision not to include Northern Ireland in the provision for compulsory military service during the Second World War). Once the British army was called out in aid of the civil power, from August 1969 onwards, it was only a matter of time before Westminster demanded control over the province's internal security policy. The refusal of Brian Faulkner's government to agree to this led to the prorogation of Stormont in March 1972, and its dissolution the following year.

The disentanglement of Northern Ireland's finances after 1921 proved more problematic than the establishment of devolved legislative powers. Revenue was allocated from the British treasury by a joint exchequer board. While the ‘imperial contribution’ soon effectively disappeared, the British government proved distinctly reluctant to make the large injection of funds necessary to raise Northern Ireland's level of welfare provision to the British level. It was agreed by the Colwyn Committee in 1925 that in future per capita welfare spending for the province would be increased ‘step by step’ with improvements in Britain, but Northern Ireland's relatively low base point meant that the great burden of inter‐war unemployment weighed very heavily on the province, while the quality and volume of urban and rural housing stock, school buildings, roads, and public health fell further behind. In effect Colwyn's arbitration of 1925 and the Unemployment Insurance Agreement of 1926, while both making financial concessions to Northern Ireland, implicitly accepted that devolution justified lower levels of provision in the province, on grounds both of historic factors and of higher per capita take‐up of welfare services than in Britain.

Full equalization of public spending provision did not come until 1946, when ‘step by step’ gave way to the principle of ‘parity’ of social services, so that welfare state provisions applied equally in Britain and in Northern Ireland. The impact of this was noticeable both in improved health statistics and in education, where free grammar schooling was available for the first time to those able or fortunate enough to pass the II‐plus examination. In economic policy also, the postwar era offered opportunities for devolved government to demonstrate its worth.

The staple industries of linen and shipbuilding, the major urban employers in the province, which had struggled during the interwar period, went into steep decline—linen from 1953 (due to competition from other materials and cheaper labour markets) and shipbuilding by the end of the same decade (due to over‐conservative management in the face of technological and market changes). Agriculture too, the province's largest employer, shed labour massively in the face of mechanization. These changes constituted a rigorous test for devolved regional government—could its closeness to the problems facilitate more effective responses than could have been offered by a more remote central government? Though the evidence is mixed, the overall answer must be ‘no’. Shipbuilding fared no better than in Britain. The man‐made fibre industry did constitute a major innovation, benefiting many centres in the east of the province, and in Derry City, from the 1950s to the 1970s, an achievement for which regional planning can claim some credit. But in this, the golden era of state planning, the lack of political consensus between nationalist and unionist in the province was an increasingly serious problem. While the economic case for concentrating new developments in the predominantly Protestant east of the province, as argued in the Matthew Plan for Greater Belfast (1962) and the Wilson Report (1964), may have been strong, Stormont's chances of gaining the confidence of the nationalist community were slimmer than those of central government would have been. Equally, the Unionist government and local authorities, most notably in Derry City, were reluctant to risk damaging their electoral position by economic or social policies that might increase the numerical or economic strength of the Catholic community. While it is not easy to control for the effects (negative and perhaps also positive) of the post‐1969 troubles on the regional economy, it seems clear that the suspension of political devolution after 1972 brought more effective public investment and no worse a performance in terms of economic management.

Bibliography

Buckland, Patrick , The Factory of Grievances: Devolved Government in Northern Ireland 1921–39 (1979)

A. C. Hepburn

Northern Ireland was formed by the Government of Ireland Act 1920–1. It comprises the six counties of the north-east of the island: Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Fermanagh, and Tyrone. To ensure a protestant majority, the nine counties of the historic province of Ulster were rejected as the boundary. Fermanagh and Tyrone, though possessing small catholic majorities, were included to provide a credible geographical entity. The British government had preferred an all-Ulster option, hoping that partition would therefore be temporary. Initially, loyalist opinion was opposed to the establishment of a separate province; but once Northern Ireland had been set up, it was seen as the crucial bulwark against Irish unification.

The artificial character of the province is demonstrated by the awkwardness of its title: parts of Donegal in the Free State/Republic are further north. It is frequently referred to as ‘the six counties’, ‘Stormont’, or ‘the Northern Statelet’, terms revealing the bias of the observer. The decision to draw the boundary according to county lines made little social, economic, or geographical sense. The natural hinterland of the city of Derry is Co. Donegal; Newry was cut off from much of its locale; isolated enclaves of catholics or protestants were created; border areas such as south Armagh saw no justification for being included in the new province; the erratic border itself divided farms, towns, and communities.

The circumstances of the province's formation dictated its turbulent subsequent history. The catholic minority, always over 30 per cent of the population, never accepted partition and usually boycotted the Belfast Parliament. The emerging Free State refused to recognize Northern Ireland. An IRA offensive in early 1922 threatened to destabilize the nascent province. In the Anglo-Irish treaty of December 1921, provision was made for a boundary commission, holding out hope of a substantial alteration of frontier. The commission did not meet until 1925 and no changes were finally made. Not surprisingly, the province established itself along the lines of a protestant state for a protestant people, with a heavy emphasis on security considerations.

After 1925, the province's future seemed more assured but still few concessions were made to the minority. Economic development was retarded by over-dependence on the British Treasury and by over-reliance on declining traditional industries. The government was dominated by narrow landed and commercial interests; all were members of the Orange order and preoccupied with appeasing their protestant constituents. Sir James Craig was prime minister 1921–40, Lord Brooke 1943–63. Unionist confidence was increased by their contribution in supplying bases and ports for Atlantic convoys, contrasting with the Free State's neutrality. However, lack of foresight and general incompetence in government circles caused the effects of German bombing of Belfast to be severe; embarrassingly, fire services had to be secretly begged from Dublin.

The declaration of an Irish republic in 1948 caused the constitutional status of the province to be clarified in the Ireland Act of 1949. Dependence on Britain was increased by the new welfare state; unemployment became the worst in the UK; the disparity between west and east of the province grew wider. But the abject failure of the IRA offensive 1956–62 appeared to remove any immediate threat and increased catholic acceptance of the province. Terence O'Neill's attempts, as premier from 1963, to modernize the economy and reform the sectarian basis of the province highlighted all inherent tensions. Unionists divided over his reforms and the catholic minority demanded more substantial changes, mounting their first effective challenge via the civil rights movement from 1967. Police and special constabulary's reaction to civil rights demonstrations, together with the unionist backlash, resulted in major riots in Derry city and Belfast, and the belated intervention of British troops to restore order and ensure more fundamental reforms. The security situation deteriorated rapidly in 1969–72, resulting in further polarization of the two communities, the alienation of the catholic population from the British army, and the formation of the Provisional IRA. The British government's declaration of direct rule from Westminster in 1972 was followed by the establishment of a power-sharing executive in January 1974, which was brought down as a consequence of the loyalist strike within five months.

The 1970s and 1980s saw a continuous, if limited, IRA offensive against both the security forces and the economy; the growth of loyalist paramilitary retaliation; spates of sectarian assassinations and bombings in the province, in Britain, and occasionally in the Republic. Abortive attempts to restore some form of devolved government only revealed the extent to which violence had hardened divisions. Demands for political status for republican prisoners in 1981 led to further catholic alienation and support for Sinn Fein. While direct rule saw a considerable diminution in governmental discriminatory practices, little progress was made on economic performance. Unionist suspicions concerning British government intentions increased and the British taxpayer was progressively alarmed about the expense of continued involvement.

By 1985 and the Anglo-Irish agreement, attention turned to co-operation between the Republic and the British government on security and political matters. The level of violence, particularly by protestant paramilitaries, increased. A sense of exhaustion after 25 years of conflict, better Anglo-Irish government communications, European and American concern, and, finally, negotiations between the SDLP and Sinn Fein leaders, John Hume and Gerry Adams, all contributed to the Downing Street declaration of December 1993, the IRA cease-fire of August 1994, and the loyalist paramilitary one two months later. After a referendum, administration was handed back in 1998 to a Northern Ireland Assembly of 108 members, of which 24 represented SDLP and 18 Sinn Fein. But hopes for the peace process in the 21st cent. were jeopardized by the reluctance of the IRA to begin serious disarmament, which led to the dissolution of the Assembly in 2003 and the re-imposition of direct rule. Devolved government was restored in 2007 with the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein sharing power.

Michael Hopkinson

Bibliography

Buckland, P. , A History of Northern Ireland (Dublin, 1981);
Wichert, S. , Northern Ireland since 1945 (1991).

Northern Ireland The part of Ireland which remained in the UK following the partition under the Government of Ireland Act (1920). It is composed of the six north-eastern counties of Ireland: Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone. It is often referred to as Ulster, although strictly speaking the historic province of Ulster also includes three other counties which are now in the Republic of Ireland. The province was formed as a result of pressure from Unionists led by Edward Carson, who did not wish to be part of a united Ireland independent from the UK. It was governed by a Prime Minister heading a Parliament at Stormont in which the predominantly Protestant population had a built-in majority. The Protestants controlled most of the jobs and housing, and discriminated against the Catholic minority (about one- third of the population), fearing that it wished to undermine Northern Ireland's position as part of the UK.

Moderate reforms were attempted by Prime Minister O'Neill in the 1960s, but in 1968 violence erupted after a series of demonstrations calling for equal civil rights for all. Subsequently, paramilitary organizations, such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), clashed. By the end of 1993, there had been 3,112 deaths as a result of political violence. The largest group to suffer was the civilian population: many of the 2,174 deaths in this group included suspected terrorists. The British army lost 443 personnel; it had been sent to Northern Ireland in 1969, initially to protect Catholics against Loyalist violence, but its presence became resented by the minority and it was thus a target for the IRA. One of the events which provoked hostility was Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972), when troops fired on a Catholic demonstration in Londonderry, killing several civilians. In March 1972, when the Stormont government proved incapable of maintaining order, the British government suspended the Northern Irish Constitution, dissolved Stormont, and imposed direct rule from London.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the British government sought to establish assemblies in which the different groups in Northern Ireland would share power. However, one or more groups have always opposed each attempt, most notably in May 1974, when a strike by the Loyalist Ulster Workers' Council brought down the Northern Ireland Assembly. In the 1980s the British government sought closer cooperation in resolving the problem with the government of the Irish Republic. In 1985 this resulted in the Anglo-Irish Accord (Hillsborough Agreement), which gave the Republic a consultative role in Northern Ireland. This angered Unionists, but reassured the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).

On 15 December 1993 the British Prime Minister, John Major, and the Irish Taoi seach, Albert Reynolds, made the Downing Street Declaration. This proclaimed the two governments' intention to promote reconciliation ‘leading to a new political framework founded on consent’. They reaffirmed their opposition to political violence, and committed themselves to bringing all democratic groups together in talks. In response, on 31 August 1994 the IRA announced a ‘complete cessation of military operations’. This was followed on 13 October 1994 by a loyalist ceasefire, and from then many British troops were withdrawn from Northern Ireland. The British government and the Unionists then made the surrender of all arms by paramilitary groups a precondition of all-party talks. This was rejected by Adams. On 9 February 1996, the IRA ceasefire was broken when it bombed Canary Wharf in the London Docklands. Sinn Féin refused to condemn the incident, whereupon the British and Irish governments broke off direct negotiations. Nevertheless, elections for representatives at all-party negotiations were held on 30 May 1996. They provided a victory for the more extremist parties, as the Democratic Unionist Party gained 18.8 per cent and Sinn Féin 15.47 per cent. By contrast, the performance of the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party (24.17 per cent) and the SDLP (21.4 per cent) was relatively disappointing.

It was not until the IRA finally declared a ceasefire on 9 Sept. 1997 that negotiations could resume, headed by Clinton's envoy, George Mitchell. After an ultimatum presented by the British and Irish governments, the parties consented to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Elections to the new Northern Irish Assembly were won by the Ulster Unionist Party with 28 seats, followed by the moderate Catholic SDLP with 24. The UUP's leader, David Trimble, became First Minister, with the SDLP's Seamus Mallon as his deputy. The government was based on a broad coalition of Protestant and Catholic parties, including Sinn Féin but excluding the Democratic Unionists. While the administration of day-to-day matters proved surprisingly smooth, the issue of decommissioning of weapons held by the IRA and the reform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary continued to be extremely contentious. As the IRA refused to honour its original promise to decommission its arms within two years of the Good Friday Agreement, David Trimble resigned in summer 2001. This led to the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly. David Trimble briefly returned as First Minister, but he resigned again in October 2002 over the slow progress of Sinn Féin's decommissioning of weapons. Self-rule was suspended once more. After Gerry Adams announced the provisional IRA's intention to disband, elections on 26 November 2003 produced a further stalemate: the largest party was now Ian Paisley's DUP, which refused any contact with Sinn Féin.

Northern Ireland was formed by the Government of Ireland Act 1920–1. It comprised the six counties of the north‐east of the island: Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Fermanagh, and Tyrone. To ensure a protestant majority, the nine counties of the historic province of Ulster were rejected as the boundary. Fermanagh and Tyrone, though possessing small catholic majorities, were included to provide a credible geographical entity.

The circumstances of the province's formation dictated its turbulent subsequent history. The catholic minority, always over 30 per cent of the population, never accepted partition and usually boycotted the Belfast Parliament. The emerging Free State refused to recognize Northern Ireland. The new province established itself along the lines of a protestant state for a protestant people, with a heavy emphasis on security considerations.

After 1925, the province's future seemed more assured. But economic development was retarded by over‐dependence on the British Treasury and by over‐reliance on declining traditional industries. The government was dominated by narrow landed and commercial interests; all were members of the Orange order. Sir James Craig was prime minister 1921–40, Lord Brooke 1943–63. Unionist confidence was increased by their contribution in supplying bases and ports for Atlantic convoys, contrasting with the Free State's neutrality.

The declaration of an Irish republic in 1948 caused the constitutional status of the province to be clarified in the Ireland Act of 1949. Terence O'Neill's attempts, as premier from 1963, to modernize the economy and reform the sectarian basis of the province highlighted all inherent tensions. Police and special constabulary's reaction to civil rights demonstrations resulted in major riots in Derry city and Belfast, and the belated intervention of British troops to restore order and ensure more fundamental reforms. The security situation deteriorated rapidly in 1969–72, resulting in the alienation of the catholic population from the British army, and the formation of the Provisional IRA. The British government's declaration of direct rule from Westminster in 1972 was followed by the establishment of a power‐sharing executive in January 1974, which was brought down as a consequence of the loyalist strike within five months.

The 1970s and 1980s saw a continuous IRA offensive against both the security forces and the economy; the growth of loyalist paramilitary retaliation; spates of sectarian assassinations and bombings in the province, in Britain, and occasionally in the Republic. Demands for political status for republican prisoners in 1981 led to further catholic alienation and support for Sinn Fein.

By 1985 and the Anglo‐Irish agreement, attention turned to co‐operation between the Republic and the British government on security and political matters. A sense of exhaustion after 25 years of conflict, better Anglo‐Irish government communications, European and American concern, and, finally, negotiations between the SDLP and Sinn Fein leaders, John Hume and Gerry Adams, all contributed to the Downing Street declaration of December 1993, the IRA cease‐fire of August 1994, and the loyalist paramilitary one two months later. After a referendum, administration was handed back in 1998 to a Northern Ireland Assembly of 108 members, of which 24 represented SDLP and 18 Sinn Fein. But hopes for the peace process in the 21st cent. have been jeopardized by the refusal of the IRA to begin serious disarmament. Assembly was suspended and direct rule reimposed.

Ireland, Northern Part of the United Kingdom, 26 districts occupying the ne of Ireland, traditionally divided into the six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone; the capital is Belfast. Other major towns include Derry, Coleraine, Ballymena, Lisburn, Newry, Armagh and Enniskillen. (For land and climate, and pre-1922 history, see Ireland.)

History

In 1920, the six counties of Ulster became the self-governing province of Northern Ireland with a separate, Protestant-dominated parliament. The British government affirmed the inclusion of Northern Ireland within the UK under the principle of self-determination. The Irish Free State (now Republic of Ireland) constitution upheld the unity of the island of Ireland. In 1955, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began a campaign of violence for the creation of an independent, unified Ireland. In 1962, the Republic of Ireland condemned the use of terrorism. Northern Catholics felt aggrieved at discrimination in employment, housing and political representation. In 1967, the Civil Rights Association was established to campaign for equal rights. In 1968, civil-rights marches resulted in violent clashes, especially in Derry. Catholic fear of the increasing Protestant domination of local security forces was compounded when the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was supplemented by the sectarian Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). The British Army was brought in to protect the Catholic populations in Belfast and Derry. The IRA and Protestant Loyalist paramilitary organizations, such as the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), increased their campaigns of sectarian violence. In 1972, the Northern Ireland parliament (Stormont) was suspended and replaced by direct rule from Westminster. On January 30, 1972 (‘Bloody Sunday’), British troops shot and killed 13 civil-rights' demonstrators. In 1974 the Council of Ireland, formed by the British and Irish governments to promote cooperation between Ulster and the Irish Republic, quickly collapsed under pressure from a Unionist-led general strike. The IRA campaign widened to include terrorist attacks on Great Britain and British military bases in w Europe. In 1981, hunger strikes by IRA prisoners were more successful in gaining worldwide sympathy. In 1985, the Anglo-Irish Agreement gave the Republic of Ireland a consultative role in the government of Northern Ireland. In 1986, a Northern Ireland Assembly was re-established, but quickly failed under the Unionists' boycott. In 1993, following secret talks between the British government and Sinn Féin, the Downing Street Declaration offered all-party negotiations following a cessation of violence. In 1994, Provisional IRA and Loyalist paramilitaries announced a cease-fire, raising hopes of an end to a sectarian conflict that had claimed more than 2700 lives. In 1996, disputes over the decommissioning of arms stalled the process and the IRA resumed its terrorist campaign on the British mainland. In July 1997, another cease-fire was agreed and, in October, Sinn Féin and Unionists took part in joint peace talks for the first time since partition.

http://www.ni-assembly.gov.uk; http://www.nio.gov.uk

Northern Ireland see Ireland, Northern .

Ireland, Northern See NORTHERN IRELAND.

Ireland, Northern see Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland, UK See Ulster.

Northern Ireland See Ireland