Northern Ireland is a province which forms part of the United Kingdom. It was formed when Ireland was divided in 1921: six counties of Ireland formed Northern Ireland, and the rest formed the Republic of Ireland in 1922. Ireland had been part of the United Kingdom since 1800 through the Act of Union and this Act was amended to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Act in 1927.
Since the division of Ireland there has been deep and often violent conflict among the 1.68m. population (2001) of Northern Ireland which is characterized by competing ethnic and religious identities. Northern Ireland is divided between the Protestant Unionists, who wish to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the Catholic nationalists who regard Ireland as a single state. The Unionists make up the majority of the population—about two-thirds—and are represented politically by the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and also the United Kingdom Unionist Party and the Progressive Unionist Party. Nationalists form a sizeable minority and their interests are represented in the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Sinn Féin. The Irish Republican party Sinn Féin’s objective is to end British rule in Ireland and to achieve national self-determination and the unity and independence of Ireland as a sovereign state. Sinn Féin has been often referred to as the political wing of the terrorist group the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Conflict in Northern Ireland arose from the domination of the Unionist majority in the political, economic and legal spheres. In response to concerns about discrimination against the Catholic minority, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was established in 1967. Sectarian fighting in the summer of 1969 led the British Government to deploy troops in the province to restore order. These troops were initially welcomed by the Catholic population, but the relationship subsequently deteriorated. The IRA was revived and some Nationalists began to use force to remove the British presence from Ireland. Unionist-dominated rule in Northern Ireland was ended by the imposition of direct rule from Westminster in 1972. What followed were 25 years of conflict interspersed with a number of unsuccessful attempts at resolution. Between 1973 and 1985 there were six attempts to secure a political solution to the conflicts in Northern Ireland. These began with the Sunningdale Agreement in 1973 and continued until the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. All of these initiatives failed because Unionists would not accept any proposal that contained an all-Ireland dimension, and Nationalists would not support any set of arrangements into which the Irish Government had little input.
A seventh attempt to secure peace was made in the 1990s and a successful conclusion was reached in 1998 in the form of the Good Friday Agreement. This led to the re-establishment of a Northern Ireland Assembly and devolved government in 1999, and the establishment of a north-south ministerial council, a British-Irish council and a British-Irish intergovernmental conference. In addition to these formal institutions, other measures were introduced to address the concerns of each party: Unionists were offered the repeal of the Republic of Ireland’s constitutional claim to Northern Ireland; Nationalists were offered a new commission on policing, which led to the reform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and its replacement by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in November 2001 and a human rights commission.
The first elections to the 108-seat Northern Ireland Assembly were held in September 1998. The UUP won the largest share of the vote and 28 seats. The SDLP won 24 seats and Sinn Féin 18. David Trimble was nominated as First Minister and a power-sharing government was formed on 1 December 1999 with the help of US senator George Mitchell, who had chaired the Good Friday talks. Devolved government to Northern Ireland has not proved durable. The Assembly was suspended on 11 February 2000 because of the failure of the IRA to prove that it had made progress in decommissioning of weapons. It was restored on 29 May 2000, but suspended again on 14 October 2002. Since then attempts have been made to elect a new executive. Elections to the Assembly were held on 26 November 2003, but it proved impossible to create a power-sharing government as the two largest parties elected—the DUP and Sinn Féin—are not prepared to work together.
The economy of Northern Ireland has traditionally been dominated by textile and shipbuilding industries. These experienced a decline from the 1970s, but Northern Ireland’s economy revived in the 1990s and was, with the help of large subsidies from the UK government (£3,340m. in 1995/96), the fastest growing region of the United Kingdom. In hi-tech manufacturing the province outperforms the mainland United Kingdom, and a large service sector, which accounts for 70% of gross domestic product (GDP), has also developed. The rate of unemployment fell from 16.8% in 1986 to 5.7% in 2002. While GDP growth is above the UK average, per caput GDP in Northern Ireland remains below the average for the whole of the United Kingdom. The improving economic situation has been attributed to the growth of inward investment encouraged by a more stable political situation, and the boom in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland’s largest export market.
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