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The only official flag for Northern Ireland is the Union Flag or Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom; there is no official local flag that represents only Northern Ireland. [1] [2] [3] The flying of various flags in Northern Ireland is a significant sectarian issue, with different communities identifying with different flags. [4]
unofficial flag of a unit of the United Kingdom, flown subordinate to the Union Jack, that consists of a white field (background) bearing a central red cross with a white six-pointed star, a red hand, and a gold crown.
The official flag is that of the state having sovereignty over the territory, i.e. the Union Flag. [225] The former Northern Ireland flag, also known as the "Ulster Banner" or "Red Hand Flag", is a banner derived from the coat of arms of the Government of Northern Ireland until 1972. Since 1972, it has had no official status.
- Overview
- Land
- Relief
- Drainage
- Soils
Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, lying in the northeastern quadrant of the island of Ireland, on the western continental periphery often characterized as Atlantic Europe. Northern Ireland is sometimes referred to as Ulster, although it includes only six of the nine counties which made up that historic Irish province.
In proximity to Scotland and to sea channels leading to England and Wales, Northern Ireland has long witnessed generations of newcomers and emigrants, including Celts from continental Europe and Vikings, Normans, and Anglo-Saxons. In the 17th century, the period of the so-called Ulster plantation, thousands of Scottish Presbyterians were forcibly resettled and English military garrisons built, arrivals that would institutionalize the ethnic, religious, and political differences that eventually resulted in violent conflict.
Since the 1920s, when Northern Ireland was officially separated from Ireland, it has been tormented by sectarian violence. Notwithstanding the peacemaking efforts that began in earnest in the mid-1990s, Northern Ireland is still best navigated by those who are skilled in the shibboleths and cultural codes that demarcate its peoples, governing which football (soccer) team to cheer for, which whiskey to drink, and which song to sing. The complexity of those political markers is captured in a graffito once scrawled on Belfast walls that read “If you are not confused you don’t understand the situation.” But, Northern Ireland’s political fortunes subsequently have changed for the better, and with that change has come a flourishing of the arts, so that increasingly outsiders associate the country not with violent politics but with the poems of Seamus Heaney, the music of Van Morrison, and other contributions to world culture.
The capital is Belfast, a modern city whose historic centre was badly damaged by aerial bombardment during World War II. Once renowned for its shipyards—the Titanic was built there—Belfast has lost much of its industrial base. The city—as with Northern Ireland’s other chief cities Londonderry (known locally and historically as Derry) and Armagh—is graced with parks and tidy residential neighbourhoods. More handsome still is the Northern Irish countryside—green, fertile, and laced with rivers and lakes, all of which have found lyrical expression in the nation’s folk and artistic traditions.
Northern Ireland occupies about one-sixth of the island of Ireland and is separated on the east from Scotland, another part of the United Kingdom, by the narrow North Channel, which is at one point only 13 miles (21 km) wide. The Irish Sea separates Northern Ireland from England and Wales on the east and southeast, respectively, and the Atlantic Oc...
Northern Ireland can be thought of topographically as a saucer centred on Lough (lake) Neagh, the upturned rim of which forms the highlands. Five of the six historic counties—Antrim, Down, Armagh, Tyrone, and Londonderry—meet at the lake, and each has a highland region on the saucer’s rim. To the north and east the mountains of Antrim (physiographically a plateau) tilt upward toward the coast. They reach an elevation of 1,817 feet (554 metres) at Trostan, with the plateau terminating in an impressive cliff coastline of basalts and chalk that is broken by a series of the glaciated valleys known as glens, which face Scotland and are rather isolated from the rest of Northern Ireland. The rounded landscape of drumlins—smooth, elongated mounds left by the melting ice of the final Pleistocene glaciation—in the southeast is punctuated by Slieve Croob, which rises to 1,745 feet (532 metres), and culminates in the Mourne Mountains, which reach an elevation of 2,789 feet (850 metres) at Slieve Donard (Northern Ireland’s highest point) within 2 miles (3 km) of the sea. This impressive landscape of granite peaks is bounded by Carlingford Lough to the south.
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The scenery to the south of Lough Neagh is gentler, but the land rises to 1,886 feet (575 metres) in Slieve Gullion near the border with Ireland. West of Lough Neagh the land rises gently to the more rounded Sperrin Mountains; Sawel, at 2,224 feet (678 metres), is the highest of several hills over 2,000 feet (610 metres). The far southwest, the historic County Fermanagh, is focused geographically on the basin of Lough Erne, in a drumlin-strewn area ringed by hills more than 1,000 feet (300 metres) high.
Much of the landscape of Northern Ireland is gentle, and in most low-lying areas it is covered with swarms of drumlins that have played havoc with the local drainage and are interspersed with marshy hollows. Glaciation also gave the land its main valleys: those of the River Bann (which drains Lough Neagh to the Atlantic Ocean) in the north, the Riv...
Soils are varied. Although much glacially transported material covers the areas below 700 feet (215 metres) in elevation, the nature of the soil is predominantly influenced by the underlying parent rock. Brown earth soils, forming arable loams, are extensive and are derived from the ancient Silurian rocks of the southeast—some 420 million years old...
The flag of Northern Ireland, commonly known as the Ulster Banner or the Red Hand Flag, has a distinct design and historical significance that reflects the region's complex political and cultural identity.
Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, does not have a universally recognized flag designated for official use. Historically, the flag commonly associated with Northern Ireland is the Ulster Banner, also known as the “Red Hand Flag” or the “Flag of Ulster.”
Current image of flag of Northern Ireland with information and location of Northern Ireland.
