Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, with Northern Ireland sharing both the culture of Ireland and the culture of the United Kingdom. In many sports, there is an All-Ireland governing body or team for the whole island; the most notable exception is association football.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the parliamentary constitutional monarchy occupying the island of Great Britain, the small nearby islands (but not the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands), and the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland. Usually, it is shortened to the United Kingdom or the UK, or Britain. [5]
Political map of present-day Ireland. The Partition of Ireland (Irish: críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK) divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland (the area today known as the Republic of Ireland, or simply Ireland).
The conflict in Northern Ireland, as well as dividing both Governments, paradoxically also led to increasingly closer co-operation and improved relations between Ireland and the United Kingdom. A 1981 meeting between the two governments established the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Council.
Although the United Kingdom is a unitary sovereign state, it contains three distinct legal jurisdictions in Scotland, England and Wales, and Northern Ireland, each retaining its own legal system even after joining the UK. [9] Since 1998, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have also gained significant autonomy through the process of devolution.
The United Kingdom lies between latitudes 49° and 61° N, and longitudes 9° W and 2° E. Northern Ireland shares a 310-mile (499 km) land boundary with the Republic of Ireland. [136] The coastline of Great Britain is 11,073 miles (17,820 km) long, [139] though measurements can vary greatly due to the coastline paradox. [140]
The Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, sometimes referred to as the Irish border or British–Irish border, runs for 499 km (310 mi) [1] [2] from Lough Foyle in the north-west of Ireland to Carlingford Lough in the north-east, separating the Republic of Ireland from Northern Ireland.
As of 2017, Northern Ireland has seven Roman Catholic members of parliament, all members of Sinn Féin (of a total of 18 from the whole of Northern Ireland) in the British House of Commons at Westminster; and the other three counties have one Protestant T.D. of the ten it has elected to Dáil Éireann, the Lower House of the Oireachtas, the ...