Northern Ireland

Core values & worldview

If you want to understand someone from Northern Ireland, start with the fact that there are two big stories here, and most people grew up inside one of them. The unionist story begins with the Plantation of Ulster in the early 1600s, when Scottish and English Protestants settled confiscated land, and runs through the Boyne, the Ulster Covenant of 1912 and the Somme to a hard-won place in the United Kingdom.^•

The nationalist story begins with the same Plantation, seen as dispossession, and runs through partition, fifty years of discrimination and the civil rights movement to a peace that opened a democratic road to Irish unity.^• Both are true to the people who hold them.

A few things run through both communities.

Loyalty to your own. Family, street, church, club and community matter enormously. People look out for their own, sometimes fiercely. That solidarity got many through the Troubles; it is also what made the divisions so hard to cross.^•

Plain speaking and black humour. People here tend to be direct and wary of airs and graces. Humour, often very dark, is a way of coping with things that would otherwise be unbearable; Derry Girls captured it perfectly. The flip side is the old advice “whatever you say, say nothing”: a learned caution about revealing your background or politics to people you don’t know.^•

Faith, even when it isn’t faith. Northern Ireland is more religious than Britain or the Republic. Churchgoing has fallen fast, but Presbyterian, Church of Ireland, Methodist and Catholic churches remain at the heart of many towns, and the label you were born with still often decides your school, your sport and the side of town you live in.^•

Fear of being abandoned. Many unionists carry a sense that Britain does not really understand or want them, and that each deal, from 1985 to Brexit, gives away a little more. Many nationalists carry a mirror-image memory of being cut off in 1921 by a Dublin that then looked away. Both communities, in their own way, feel like minorities.^•

Daily life & customs

Day to day, life looks like anywhere else in the UK and Ireland: the same shops, a love of tea and a good fry, endless talk about the weather. People are famously friendly to visitors, and strangers chat at bus stops. Yet small signals tell locals a great deal: your name, your school, which sports you play, whether you say “Derry” or “Londonderry”, how you pronounce the letter H (“haitch” is often taken as Catholic, “aitch” as Protestant).^•

Sport often follows community lines. Gaelic football, hurling and camogie are played mainly by Catholics through the GAA; rugby, cricket and hockey are more Protestant; football (soccer) and boxing cross over, though Northern Ireland’s football team draws much of its support from unionists, and many nationalists follow the Republic or Celtic.^•

The calendar has its own rhythm. The “marching season” peaks on the Twelfth of July, when Orange lodges parade with bands and banners to mark the Boyne, after bonfires on the Eleventh night; it is a public holiday and many Catholics head away. Republicans commemorate Easter 1916, unionists mark the Somme on 1 July, and Remembrance Sunday is observed far more widely by Protestants than Catholics. St Patrick’s Day is celebrated by many from all backgrounds.^•

Language carries identity too. In the 2021 census about one in eight people had some ability in Irish and about one in ten in Ulster-Scots, the Scots-derived speech of Antrim and Down.^•

Both languages gained official recognition in 2022, after years in which Irish was a political flashpoint.

Most people still live, school and socialise mainly with their own community, especially in working-class areas. Universities, workplaces and city-centre life are much more mixed, and many people have friends and partners across the line.^•

Wounds & sensitivities

The dead of the Troubles. About 3,500 people were killed and more than 40,000 injured. Republicans killed the most, about six in ten, loyalists about three in ten, and the security forces about one in ten. Every community has its massacres and its martyrs: Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy, Enniskillen and La Mon, the Shankill bomb and Greysteel, Omagh.^•

Who counts as a “victim”, whether a dead paramilitary is one, and whether to pursue prosecutions or truth recovery, are some of the most painful questions in public life.

The disappeared and the unsolved. Thousands of killings were never solved. Families of “the Disappeared”, people abducted and secretly buried, mostly by the IRA, still wait for remains. Revelations of state collusion with loyalist killers and informers within paramilitary ranks keep surfacing.^•

Discrimination and the “cold house”. For older nationalists, the memory of Stormont, of being told you were disloyal and treated accordingly, is not abstract. For unionists, having their whole history reduced to bigotry is equally wounding.^•

Feeling forgotten. Loyalist working-class districts, once tied to the shipyards and engineering works, now have some of the lowest educational outcomes in the UK, and a strong sense of being left behind by the peace.^•

Mental health. A generation lived with fear, and trauma has been passed down. Northern Ireland has among the highest rates of mental ill-health in the UK, and many researchers link this to the conflict.^•

Modern attitudes

Peace, whatever the frustrations. Large majorities say the Good Friday Agreement was the right thing, even if many unionists feel it delivered more for the other side and many people despair at Stormont’s collapses.^•

Brexit. Northern Ireland voted 55.8% to remain in the EU in 2016, with most nationalists and a large minority of unionists voting Remain.^•

The post-Brexit Protocol and the 2023 Windsor Framework, which keep the land border open by placing checks on some goods arriving from Britain, are welcomed by many nationalists and businesses as protecting the peace, and resented by many unionists as an “Irish Sea border” that weakens the Union.^•

A united Ireland? It is discussed more openly than ever, but surveys still show more people would vote to stay in the UK, with a large undecided middle, many of them Catholic, who say it depends on the detail: health care, taxes, and whether it can be done without violence.^•

Social change, late but fast. Northern Ireland was long the most socially conservative part of the UK and Ireland. Same-sex marriage and abortion were legalised only in 2019–20, by Westminster while Stormont was suspended. Younger people are markedly more liberal and less religious than their parents.^•

Not all people from Northern Ireland are the same

Unionist and loyalist. Unionists support the Union; “loyalist” usually means working-class, more hard-line unionism, and is also the name used by loyalist paramilitaries. Unionism itself ranges from liberal to deeply conservative, and its main parties, the DUP and UUP, often disagree sharply.^•

Nationalist and republican. Nationalists want a united Ireland by peaceful means; “republican” traditionally means the more militant tradition of Sinn Féin and the IRA. For decades most nationalists voted for the SDLP’s non-violent path; since 2001 Sinn Féin has been the larger party.^•

Neither. A growing group identifies as neither, or as Northern Irish. Many come from mixed families, the professions or the young, and many vote Alliance or Green. Some Catholics are content in the UK, and some Protestants are relaxed about unity.^•

Newcomers. Northern Ireland is more diverse than it was: Polish, Lithuanian, Filipino, Indian, Chinese and other communities, plus long-established Jewish and Traveller communities. Racist attacks, sometimes in loyalist areas, have been a worrying feature, and newcomers can find themselves pushed to pick a “side”.^•

East and west of the Bann. Belfast and the mainly Protestant east differ from the mainly Catholic, more rural south and west, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh and south Armagh, where the border was a daily presence.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Where they’re from, and the craic there. Towns, coastlines and local food (try “What’s the best chippy?”) are safe and welcome.
• Belfast’s revival. The Titanic Quarter, the Cathedral Quarter’s pubs and music, the Causeway Coast, Game of Thrones filming locations.
• Culture. Derry Girls, Van Morrison, Heaney, C. S. Lewis (born in Belfast), Kneecap, or the local golfers who keep winning majors.
• Food. An Ulster fry, a pastie supper or a Belfast bap will start a good argument.

Topics to approach carefully

• Don’t guess their identity. Don’t assume someone is Irish or British. Let them tell you, and use the name they use for the city and the place.^•
  • Census 2021: Main Statistics for Northern Ireland (religion and national identity) — Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (2022)
  • Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
• “Which foot do you kick with?” Asking someone’s religion, school or which side they’re from is the oldest local way of placing a person, and many resent it.^•
  • Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction — Marc Mulholland, Oxford University Press (2002)
• The Troubles. People may share their stories if you listen; don’t ask “Did you lose anyone?”, don’t take sides, and don’t romanticise paramilitaries, Irish or British.^•
  • Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles — David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton, Mainstream Publishing (1999)
• Flags, bonfires and parades. Hugely sensitive; what is heritage to one person is intimidation to another.
• Brexit and a border poll. People feel strongly and often personally. Ask what they think rather than telling them.^•
  • The Windsor Framework — UK Government and European Commission (2023)
  • ARINS/Irish Times North and South Surveys — ARINS (Royal Irish Academy and University of Notre Dame) and The Irish Times, Royal Irish Academy (2023)

Common misconceptions

• “It’s a religious war.” The Troubles were about national identity, power and equality. Religion marked the communities, not a dispute about theology.^•
  • Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
• “Northern Ireland is part of Great Britain.” It is part of the United Kingdom, but Great Britain is the island of England, Scotland and Wales.^•
  • Northern Ireland — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
• “It’s all over / nothing’s changed.” Neither: the killing has largely ended, and life is transformed, but division, segregation and paramilitary influence in some areas remain.^•
  • Together: Building a United Community — Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister (2013)
  • Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
• “Everyone there is Irish” (or “British”). About a third say they are only British, close to a third only Irish, a fifth only Northern Irish, and many combine them.^•
  • Census 2021: Main Statistics for Northern Ireland (religion and national identity) — Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (2022)
• “It’s dangerous.” Recorded crime is lower than in England and Wales, and visitors are warmly welcomed.