1.
Scots language
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Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster. It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language which was restricted to most of the Highlands. The language developed during the Middle English period as a distinct entity, although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects do exist, these often render contradictory results. Broad Scots is at one end of a linguistic continuum. Scots is often regarded as one of the ancient varieties of English, alternatively, Scots is sometimes treated as a distinct Germanic language, in the way Norwegian is closely linked to, yet distinct from, Danish. In the 2011 Scottish census, a question on Scots language ability was featured, native speakers sometimes refer to their vernacular as braid Scots or use a dialect name such as the Doric, or the Buchan Claik. The old-fashioned Scotch, an English loan, occurs occasionally, especially in Northern Ireland, the term Lallans, a variant of the Modern Scots word lawlands, is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the Lallans literary form. Scots in Ireland is known in circles as Ulster-Scots or Ullans. Scots is a contraction of Scottis, the Older Scots and northern version of late Old English Scottisc, before the end of the 15th century, English speech in Scotland was known as English, whereas Scottish referred to Gaelic. From 1495 the term Scottis was increasingly used to refer to the Lowland vernacular and Erse, meaning Irish, the Gaelic of Scotland is now usually called Scottish Gaelic. Northumbrian Old English had been established in what is now southeastern Scotland as far as the River Forth by the seventh century and it remained largely confined to this area until the thirteenth century, continuing in common use while Gaelic was the language of the Scottish court. Scots also includes loan words resulting from contact with Gaelic, Early medieval legal documents include a body of Gaelic legal and administrative loans. Contemporary Gaelic loans are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such as ceilidh, loch, from the thirteenth century Early Scots spread further into Scotland via the burghs, proto-urban institutions which were first established by King David I. The growth in prestige of Early Scots in the century. By the sixteenth century Middle Scots had established orthographic and literary norms largely independent of those developing in England, from 1610 to the 1690s during the Plantation of Ulster large numbers of Scots-speaking Lowlanders, some 200,000, settled there. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one, Modern Scots is used to describe the language after 1700 when southern Modern English was generally adopted as the literary language though Scots remained the vernacular. In Scotland, Scots is spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, the Northern Isles, Caithness, Arran, in Ulster it is spoken in the Counties of Down, Antrim, Londonderry and Donegal. Dialects include Insular Scots, Northern Scots, Central Scots, Southern Scots, many speakers are either diglossic and/or able to code-switch along the continuum depending on the situation in which they find themselves
2.
Irish language
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Irish, also referred to as Gaelic or Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people. Irish enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and it is also among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland and it has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. The fate of the language was influenced by the power of the English state in Ireland. Elizabethan officials viewed the use of Irish unfavourably, as being a threat to all things English in Ireland and its decline began under English rule in the 17th century. In the latter part of the 19th century, there was a decrease in the number of speakers. Irish-speaking areas were hit especially hard, by the end of British rule, the language was spoken by less than 15% of the national population. Since then, Irish speakers have been in the minority, efforts have been made by the state, individuals and organisations to preserve, promote and revive the language, but with mixed results. Around the turn of the 21st century, estimates of native speakers ranged from 20,000 to 80,000 people. In the 2011 Census, these numbers had increased to 94,000 and 1.3 million, there are several thousand Irish speakers in Northern Ireland. It has been estimated that the active Irish-language scene probably comprises 5 to 10 per cent of Irelands population, there has been a significant increase in the number of urban Irish speakers, particularly in Dublin. In Gaeltacht areas, however, there has been a decline of the use of Irish. Údarás na Gaeltachta predicted that, by 2025, Irish will no longer be the language in any of the designated Gaeltacht areas. Survey data suggest that most Irish people think highly of Irish as a marker of identity. It has also argued that newer urban groups of Irish speakers are a disruptive force in this respect. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil the name of the language is Gaeilge, before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled Gaedhilge, originally this was the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in Classical Irish. Older spellings of this include Gaoidhealg in Classical Irish and Goídelc in Old Irish, the modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge, whereas Goidelic languages, used to refer to the language family including Irish, comes from Old Irish
3.
Northern Ireland
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Northern Ireland is a constituent unit of the United Kingdom in the north-east of Ireland. It is variously described as a country, province, region, or part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the total population. Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by an act of the British parliament, Northern Ireland has historically been the most industrialised region of Ireland. After declining as a result of the political and social turmoil of the Troubles, its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. Unemployment in Northern Ireland peaked at 17. 2% in 1986, dropping to 6. 1% for June–August 2014,58. 2% of those unemployed had been unemployed for over a year. Prominent artists and sports persons from Northern Ireland include Van Morrison, Rory McIlroy, Joey Dunlop, Wayne McCullough, some people from Northern Ireland prefer to identify as Irish while others prefer to identify as British. Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, in many sports, the island of Ireland fields a single team, a notable exception being association football. Northern Ireland competes separately at the Commonwealth Games, and people from Northern Ireland may compete for either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympic Games. The region that is now Northern Ireland was the bedrock of the Irish war of resistance against English programmes of colonialism in the late 16th century, the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland had been declared by the English king Henry VIII in 1542, but Irish resistance made English control fragmentary. Victories by English forces in war and further Protestant victories in the Williamite War in Ireland toward the close of the 17th century solidified Anglican rule in Ireland. In Northern Ireland, the victories of the Siege of Derry and their intention was to materially disadvantage the Catholic community and, to a lesser extent, the Presbyterian community. In the context of open institutional discrimination, the 18th century saw secret, militant societies develop in communities in the region and act on sectarian tensions in violent attacks. Following this, in an attempt to quell sectarianism and force the removal of discriminatory laws, the new state, formed in 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was governed from a single government and parliament based in London. Between 1717 and 1775 some 250,000 people from Ulster emigrated to the British North American colonies and it is estimated that there are more than 27 million Scotch-Irish Americans now living in the US. By the close of the century, autonomy for Ireland within the United Kingdom, in 1912, after decades of obstruction from the House of Lords, Home Rule became a near-certainty. A clash between the House of Commons and House of Lords over a controversial budget produced the Parliament Act 1911, which enabled the veto of the Lords to be overturned. The House of Lords veto had been the unionists main guarantee that Home Rule would not be enacted, in 1914, they smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for use by the Ulster Volunteers, a paramilitary organisation opposed to the implementation of Home Rule
4.
Irish grid reference system
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The Irish grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references commonly used in Ireland. The Irish grid lies within the British grid, but uses a different co-ordinate system with a meridian more suited to the westerly location, in general, neither Ireland nor Great Britain uses latitude or longitude in describing internal geographic locations. Instead grid reference systems are in common usage, the national grid referencing system was devised by the Ordnance Survey, and is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Additionally grid references are commonly quoted in publications and data sources. The Ordnance Survey of Ireland has implemented a new system for Ireland called Irish Transverse Mercator, or ITM. In both systems, the origin is at 53°30 N, 8° W — a point in Lough Ree, close to the western shore. The area of Ireland is divided into 25 squares, measuring 100 by 100 km, the squares are numbered A to Z with I being omitted. Seven of the squares do not actually cover any land in Ireland, within each square, eastings and northings from the origin of the square are given numerically. For example, G0305 means square G,3 km east,5 km north, coordinates may also be given relative to the origin of the entire 500 by 500 km grid. For example, the location of the Spire of Dublin on OConnell Street may be given as 315904,234671 as well as O1590434671, coordinates in this format must never be truncated, because, for example,31590,23467 is also a valid location. Ordnance Survey Ireland,185 years of innovation in mapping, archived from the original on September 11,2009. The Irish Grid - A Description of the Co-ordinate Reference System used in Ireland PDF on the Irish Grid from OSi, history and overview of the system, from OSI OSI online coordinate converter tool Clickable webmap that shows Irish grid references
5.
Local government in Northern Ireland
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Northern Ireland is divided into 11 districts for local government purposes. Their functions include waste and recycling services, leisure and community services, building control and local economic and they are not planning authorities, but are consulted on some planning applications. The collection of rates is handled by the Land and Property Services agency, the current pattern of 11 local government districts was established on 1 April 2015, as a result of the reform process that started in 2005. The system was based on the recommendations of the Macrory Report, of June 1970, from 1921 to 1973, Northern Ireland was divided into six administrative counties and two county boroughs. The counties and county continue to exist for the purposes of lieutenancy. This system, with the abolition of districts, remains the model for local government in the Republic of Ireland. Councillors are elected for a term of office under the single transferable vote system. Elections were last held in May 2014, to qualify for election, a councillor candidate must be, at least 18 years of age, and a Commonwealth of Nations or European Union citizen. The districts are combined for various purposes, in the Eurostat Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, Northern Ireland is divided into five parts at level 3 There were five education and library boards in Northern Ireland. As part of the Review of Public Administration process, the functions of the ELBs were taken over by a new body. The education and skills functions were centralised into a single Education Authority for Northern Ireland in April 2015, the boards were as follows, There were four health and social services boards which were replaced by a single Health and Social Care Board in April 2009. Among its recommendations were a reduction in the number of districts, in 2005 Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced proposals to reduce the number of councils to seven. The names and boundaries of the seven districts were announced in March 2007, in March 2008 the restored Northern Executive agreed to create eleven new councils instead of the original seven. The first elections were due to place in May 2011. However, by May 2010 disagreements among parties in the executive over district boundaries were expected to delay the reforms until 2015, in June 2010 the proposed reforms were abandoned following the failure of the Northern Ireland Executive to reach agreement. However, on 12 March 2012, the Northern Ireland Executive published its programme for government, which included a commitment to reduce the number of councils in Northern Ireland to 11
6.
Causeway Coast and Glens
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Causeway Coast and Glens is a local government district covering most of the northern part of Northern Ireland. It was created on 1 April 2015 by merging the Borough of Ballymoney, the Borough of Coleraine, the Borough of Limavady, the local authority is Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council. The district covers most of the part of Northern Ireland. It has a population of around 132,000 and an electorate of 88,654, the name of the new district was announced on 17 September 2008 as Causeway Coast and was revised in February 2009. The Coleraine-Portrush line provides a service from the interchange at Coleraine station at the south of the branch with Portrush station the station terminal at the north of the branch line, the Giants Causeway and Bushmills Railway is a heritage railway and major tourist attraction. At Castlerock the first of the seaside resorts the estuary of the River Bann is reached with crossing points located upstream at Coleraine, from the River Bann the coast includes seaside resorts of Portstewart and Portrush. Further along there is Dunluce Castle, Portballintrae and the town of Bushmills, the River Bush is crossed beside the Giants Causeway and Bushmills Railway, and the Giants Causeway is nearby. The coast includes Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and the small Dunseverick Castle, from Ballycastle the coastline veers southwards around Fair Head and continues with the North Channel and the settlements of Cushendun, then Cushendall and finally Waterfoot. Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council replaced Ballymoney Borough Council, Coleraine Borough Council, Limavady Borough Council, the first elections took place on 22 May 2014 and the council acted as a shadow authority until 1 April 2015
7.
Counties of Northern Ireland
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In total Northern Ireland consisted of six counties, Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone. These form two-thirds of the province of Ulster. The number has been used in the designation The Six Counties as an Irish-nationalist alternative name for Northern Ireland, the English administration in Ireland in the years following the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland created counties as the major subdivisions of an Irish province. Though the present-day counties of Northern Ireland were planned in the early 16th century, each county would have an associated county town, with county courts of Quarter Sessions and Assizes. The counties of Antrim and Down have their origins in the Norman Earldom of Ulster which was based on John de Courcys conquest of Ulaid. Between the late 13th and early 14th centuries it was organised into shires based around centres of Norman power such as Antrim, Carrickfergus. The Bruce invasion saw the devastation of the Earldom of Ulster and it was not until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I that Ulster would be shired into more counties, based largely on the boundaries of existing lordships. In 1584, Lord Deputy of Ireland Sir John Perrott created the counties in what is now Northern Ireland, Armagh, Coleraine, Fermanagh. Carrickfergus would retain its status as a county town until 1777 when it was merged with County Antrim, each county was divided into a number of baronies, a midway between a county and a parish. Baronies are now administrative units, partially derived from the territory of an Irish chieftain. The Grand Jury representment system would also be based on the barony, the counties were also used as the administrative unit of local government introduced in Ireland under the 1898 Local Government Act along with county boroughs. In regards to Northern Ireland the cities of Belfast and Londonderry became county boroughs, the counties and county boroughs in terms of governance where abolished in Northern Ireland in 1972 and replaced with twenty-six unitary councils, many of which cross county boundaries. The six administrative counties and two county boroughs remain in use for some purposes, including car number plates, the six counties were also used as postal counties by the Royal Mail for sorting purposes until their abolition in 1996. Outside government, the counties are used for cultural purposes. Like the rest of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland is divided into lieutenancy areas and these are areas that have an appointed Lord Lieutenant—the representative of the British monarch. Northern Ireland has eight areas, Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, County of Londonderry, City of Londonderry. These are contiguous with the six counties and two county boroughs, established by the 1898 Local Government Act. Carrickfergus was formerly a county of itself, it extended further than the borough of Carrickfergus
8.
County Londonderry
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County Londonderry, also known as County Derry, is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. Adjoining the north-west shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,074 km² and has a population of about 247,132 and it is also one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland, as well as part of the historic province of Ulster. Since 1981, it has one of four counties in Northern Ireland that has a Catholic majority. The county flower is the Purple Saxifrage, the place name Derry is an anglicisation of the old Irish Daire, meaning oak-grove or oak-wood. As with the city, its name is subject to the Derry/Londonderry name dispute, with the form Londonderry generally preferred by unionists, british authorities use the name Londonderry, while Derry is used by the Republic of Ireland. Mountsandel located near Coleraine in County Londonderry is perhaps the oldest recorded settlement within Ireland, at an early period, what became the county of Coleraine was inhabited by the OCahans, who were tributary to the ONeills. This county was named Londonderry, a combination of London and Derry, the Irish Society was made up of the twelve main livery companies of London, which themselves were composed of various guilds. Whilst The Irish Society as a whole was given possession of the city of Londonderry and Coleraine, the county town of County Londonderry, and seat of the Londonderry County Council until its abolition in 1973, was therefore moved to the town of Coleraine. The highest point in the county is the summit of Sawel Mountain on the border with County Tyrone, Sawel is part of the Sperrin Mountains, which dominate the southern part of the county. In the centre of the county are the deciduous forests at Banagher and Ness Wood. These councils were, Derry City Council, Limavady Borough Council, and Magherafelt District Council, most of Coleraine Borough Council, the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway continued as a private bus company based in the city but operating predominantly in County Donegal until it closed in 2014. Bus services are now provided by Ulsterbus, two major centres of the University of Ulster are in the county, including its headquarters at Coleraine and the Magee Campus in Derry. The Derry teams wear the red and white. There are many teams competing in up to five leagues. The county team has won one All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and five National League titles, hurling is also widely played but is not as popular as football. However, the county team is regarded as one of the top hurling sides in Ulster. The Northern Ireland Milk Cup was established in 1983 and is regarded as one of the most prestigious youth football tournaments in Europe and the world. In rugby union, the county is represented at senior level by Rainey Old Boys Rugby Club, Magherafelt who compete in the Ulster Senior League and All Ireland Division Three
9.
Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
10.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
11.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information
12.
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code. All mobile telephone numbers have 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code, regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long, the total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits. The area code is referred to as an STD or a dialling code in the UK. The code allocated to the largest population is for London, the code allocated to the largest area is for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—even though they are not part of the UK itself. Possible number formats for UK telephone numbers are as follows, Number ranges starting 01 can have NSN length as 10 or 9 digits, the 0800 range can have NSN length as 10,9 or 7 digits. The 0845 range can have NSN length as 10 or 7 digits, the 0500 range has NSN length as 9 digits only. There are no numbers in the UK with an NSN length of 8 digits. Geographic telephone numbers in the UK always have nine or ten digits, four-digit area codes have either six-digit subscriber numbers or a mix of five- and six-digit subscriber numbers. Xxxxxx This is the used by most areas. It has an area code and a six digit subscriber number. These area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995. Just short of 581 areas use this format, and the area range from 01200 to 01998. A small number of areas also have a few subscriber numbers that have only five digits. That is, almost all area codes now have only six digit local numbers, six of the four-digit area codes are known as mixed areas as they share those four digits with the twelve five-digit area codes. The numbers therefore have only nine digits after the initial zero trunk code and these area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the initial zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995
13.
Police Service of Northern Ireland
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The Police Service of Northern Ireland is the police force that serves Northern Ireland. It is the successor to the defunct Royal Ulster Constabulary which, although the majority of PSNI officers are still Ulster Protestants, this dominance is not as pronounced as it was in the RUC because of positive discrimination policies. The RUC was a police force and played a key role in policing the violent conflict known as the Troubles. As part of the Good Friday Agreement, there was an agreement to introduce a new police force based on the body of constables of the RUC. As part of the reform, an Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland was set up, the Police Act 2000 named the new police force as the Police Service of Northern Ireland, shortened to Police Service of Northern Ireland for operational purposes. All major political parties in Northern Ireland now support the PSNI, at first Sinn Féin, which represents about a quarter of Northern Ireland voters, refused to endorse the PSNI until the Patten Commissions recommendations were implemented in full. However, as part of the St Andrews Agreement, Sinn Féin announced its acceptance of the PSNI in January 2007. The senior officer in charge of the PSNI is its Chief Constable, the Chief Constable is appointed by the Northern Ireland Policing Board, subject to the approval of the Minister of Justice for Northern Ireland. The Chief Constable of Northern Ireland is the third-highest paid British police officer, the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police are respectively the highest-paid and second-highest paid British police officers. Each district is headed by a Chief Superintendent, districts are divided into areas, commanded by a Chief Inspector, these in turn are divided into sectors, commanded by Inspectors. In recent years, under new structural reforms, some Chief Inspectors command more than one area as the PSNI strives to make savings, in 2001 the old police divisions and sub-divisions were replaced with 29 District Command Units, broadly coterminous with local council areas. In 2007 the DCUs were replaced by eight districts in anticipation of local government restructuring under the Review of Public Administration, responsibility for policing and justice was devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 9 March 2010, although direction and control of the PSNI remains under the Chief Constable. PSNI officers have police powers throughout Northern Ireland and the adjacent United Kingdom waters. Other than in mutual aid circumstances they have limited police powers in the other two legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom—England and Wales, and Scotland. The Patten Report recommended that a programme of long-term personnel exchanges should be established between the PSNI and the Garda Síochána, the police force of the Republic of Ireland. This recommendation was enacted in 2002 by an Inter-Governmental Agreement on Policing Cooperation, the PSNI also has an education organisation named B safe, created by Dympna Thornton in 2006. The PSNI is supervised by the Northern Ireland Policing Board, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland deals with any complaints regarding the PSNI, and investigates any allegations of misconduct by police officers. The current Police Ombudsman is former Oversight Commissioner Al Hutchinson, who took over from Nuala OLoan in November 2007, the Oversight role ended on 31 May 2007, with the final report indicating that of Pattens 175 recommendations,140 had been completed with a further 16 substantially completed
14.
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They are distinct from and governed by an authority, which is the legislative, public and administrative body. Fire authorities in England and Wales, and therefore fire and rescue services, Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire and rescue services, and so their authorities are effectively committees of the devolved parliaments. The total budget for services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. The devolved government in Scotland has an agency, HMFSI Scotland. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain,1947, Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed entirely in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire,1959, Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act, it dealt with pensions, staffing arrangements and provision of services by other authorities. It was repealed in England and Wales along with the 1947 Act,1999, Greater London Authority Act 1999 This act was necessary to allow for the formation of the Greater London Authority and in turn the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2002, there was a series of fire strikes. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the action still ongoing. Bains report ultimately led to a change in the relating to firefighting. 2002, Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, generally only applying to England and it came into force on 1 October 2006. The DfCLG has published a set of guides for non-domestic premises,2006, The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave the National Assembly for Wales powers to pass laws on Fire, promotion of fire safety otherwise than by prohibition or regulation. But does not prevent future legislation being passed by the UK government which applies to two or more constituent countries, There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. The fire service in England and Wales is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee, in June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office, Fire Control On 8 February 2010 the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee heard evidence on the Fire Control project. Called to give evidence were Cllr Brian Coleman and Cllr James Pearson from the Local Government Association, also giving evidence Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union and John Bonney Chief Fire Officers Association
15.
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland. The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are also a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles. There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have also provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are also monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
16.
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service
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The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust is the ambulance service that serves the whole of Northern Ireland. As with other services in the United Kingdom, it does not charge its patients directly for its services. It responds to emergencies in Northern Ireland with the 300-plus ambulance vehicles at its disposal. Its fleet includes mini-buses, ambulance officers cars, support vehicles, RRVs and accident, the Service employs approximately 1,100 staff based across 57 stations & sub-stations,2 Control Centres and a Regional Ambulance Training Centre. It responds to approximately 140,000 emergency calls per year with a combination of traditional emergency ambulances with two members, and rapid response vehicles crewed by a single paramedic. RRVs respond mostly to calls where there is a potential immediate life-threat because they can more quickly than a conventional ambulance. Double-crew ambulances respond to both Emergency and Non-emergency calls as well as providing critical-care transfers between hospitals, the Trust has not adopted the use of ECAs in the way many other UK Ambulance Services have. Within the Patient Care Service there are both single-crewed sitting case vehicles as well as double-crewed intermediate care vehicles which carry a stretcher, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was formed on 1 April 1995 through the amalgamation of its 4 predecessors. Its full title is the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust
17.
East Londonderry (UK Parliament constituency)
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East Londonderry, is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The seat was created in boundary changes in 1983, as part of an expansion of Northern Irelands constituencies from 12 to 17, from further revisions in 1995, and until the 2008 revision, it covered exactly the same area as the districts of Coleraine and Limavady. The inclusion of all of Coleraine Borough means that part of the East Londonderry constituency is actually in County Antrim, for the 2010 general election the East Londonderry constituency was formed by the following local government areas, as confirmed by the Northern Ireland Parliamentary Constituencies Order. The entire local government districts of Limavady and Coleraine, banagher, and Claudy, from the Derry district. The constituency has a unionist majority, though in many elections nationalists have polled close to 35% of the vote, the main interest in elections has been the contest between the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party. The UUP were normally ahead of the DUP until the 2001 general election when the DUP finally overtook them, many commentators joked that the DUPs gain meant that East Londonderry now had a more pro-Agreement MP than before. For the history of the equivalent constituency prior to 1983, please see Londonderry, the Member of Parliament since the 2001 general election is Gregory Campbell of the Democratic Unionist Party. In that election he defeated William Ross of the Ulster Unionist Party who had represented East Londonderry since 1983,1997 changes are compared to the notional figures from 1992. List of Parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland
18.
Northern Ireland Assembly
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The Northern Ireland Assembly is the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland. It has power to legislate in a range of areas that are not explicitly reserved to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It sits at Parliament Buildings at Stormont in Belfast, the Assembly is one of two mutually inter-dependent institutions created under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the other being the North/South Ministerial Council with the Republic of Ireland. The Agreement aimed at bringing an end to Northern Irelands violent 30-year Troubles, the Assembly is a unicameral, democratically elected body comprising 90 members known as Members of the Legislative Assembly, or MLAs. Members are elected under the single transferable vote form of proportional representation, the Assembly has been suspended on several occasions, the longest suspension being from 14 October 2002 until 7 May 2007. When the Assembly was suspended, its powers reverted to the Northern Ireland Office, powers in relation to policing and justice were transferred to the Assembly on 12 April 2010. The third assembly was dissolved on 24 March 2011 in preparation for the elections to be held on Thursday 5 May 2011 and this was the first assembly since the Good Friday Agreement to complete a full term. This was followed by a fourth term. After the May 2016 elections, the Assembly convened for a fifth term and that assembly dissolved on 26 January 2017, and a fresh election for a reduced Assembly was held on 2 March 2017. The Parliament was suspended on 30 March 1972 and formally abolished in 1973 under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973, shortly after this first parliament was abolished, attempts began to restore devolution on a new basis that would see power shared between Irish nationalists and unionists. To this end a new parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, was established in 1973, however, this body was brought down by the Ulster Workers Council strike and was abolished in 1974. It received little support from Irish nationalists and was dissolved in 1986. The current incarnation of the Northern Ireland Assembly was first elected on 25 June 1998, however, it only existed in shadow form until 2 December 1999 when full powers were devolved to the Assembly. On 8 December 2005, three Belfast men at the centre of the alleged IRA spying incident were acquitted of all charges, the prosecution offered no evidence in the public interest. Afterwards Denis Donaldson, one of those arrested, said that the charges should never have been brought as the action was political. On 17 December 2005, Donaldson publicly confirmed that he had been a spy for British intelligence since the early 1980s, mr Donaldson was killed on 4 April 2006 by the Real IRA. Eileen Bell was appointed by the Secretary of State Peter Hain to be the Speaker of the Assembly, with Francie Molloy, the Northern Ireland Act 2006 repealed the Northern Ireland Act 2006 and thus disbanded the Assembly. The Northern Ireland Act 2006 provided for a Transitional Assembly to take part in preparations for the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland, a person who was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly was also a member of the Transitional Assembly
19.
East Londonderry (Assembly constituency)
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East Londonderry is a constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The seat was first used for a Northern Ireland-only election for the Northern Ireland Forum in 1996, since 1998, it has elected members to the current Assembly. For Assembly elections prior to 1996, the constituency was part of the Londonderry constituency with a small part around Portrush coming from North Antrim constituency. Since 1997, it has shared boundaries with the East Londonderry UK Parliament constituency, for further details of the history and boundaries of the constituency, see East Londonderry. Note, The columns in this table are used only for presentational purposes, for details of the order in which seats were won at each election, see the detailed results of that election. Note, David McClarty appeared on the paper with no description. Successful candidates are shown in bold
20.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
21.
Civil parishes in Ireland
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Civil parishes are units of territory in the island of Ireland that have their origins in old Gaelic territorial divisions. They were adopted by the Anglo-Norman Lordship of Ireland and then by the Elizabethan Kingdom of Ireland and they no longer correspond to the boundaries of Roman Catholic or Church of Ireland parishes, which are generally larger. Their use as administrative units was gradually replaced by Poor Law Divisions in the 19th century, today they are still sometimes used for legal purposes. The Irish civil parish was based on the Gaelic territorial unit called a túath orTrícha cét, following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the Anglo-Norman barons retained the tuath, later renamed a parish or manor, as a unit of taxation. The civil parish was created by Elizabethan legislation. Accounts were kept of income and expenditures for each parish including pensions, statutes were based on ecclesiastical parishes, although it is not known how well-defined such parishes were. At the time of the English Civil War, in 1654–56 a Civil Survey was taken of all the lands of Ireland. It proved inaccurate, and in 1656–58 the Down Survey was conducted, using physical measurements to make as accurate a map as was possible at the time of townlands and this became the basis for all future land claims. Parishes are a subdivision, with multiple townlands per parish. A civil parish is made up of 25–30 townlands. It may include areas such as villages. A parish may cross the boundaries of both baronies and counties, in cases it may be in several geographically separate parts. Civil parishes had some use in local taxation and they were included on the nineteenth-century maps of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. The Local Government Act 1898 established administrative counties divided into county districts making parishes largely obsolete, for poor law purposes district electoral divisions replaced the civil parishes in the mid-nineteenth century. Townlands are the smallest land unit in Ireland, and were the most precise address that most rural people have until the 2015 introduction of postcodes. An 1871 report to parliament noted that there were three classes of parish in Ireland, the parish, the Church of Ireland parish. The first two generally but not always had the boundaries, while the third generally did not. A Tudor statute, renewed in 1695 by the Irish parliament, the Union of Parishes Act 1827 defined rules for redefining parish boundaries, erecting Chapels of Ease and making Perpetual Cures
22.
River Bann
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The River Bann is the longest river in Northern Ireland, its length, Upper and Lower Bann combined, being 129 km. However, the length of the River Bann, including its path through the 30 km long Lough Neagh is 159 km. Another length of the River Bann given is 90 mi, the river winds its way from the southeast corner of Northern Ireland to the northwest coast, pausing in the middle to widen into the enormous Lough Neagh. The River Bann catchment has an area of 5,775 km2, the River Bann has a mean discharge rate of 92 m3/s. According to C. Michael Hogan, the Bann River Valley is a settlement area for some of the first human arrivals in Ireland after the most recent glacial retreat. The river has played an important part in the industrialisation of the north of Ireland, today salmon and eel fisheries are the most important economic features of the river. The river is used as a dividing line between the eastern and western areas of Northern Ireland, often labelled the Bann divide. Towns, councils and businesses west of the Bann are often seen as having less investment and government spending than those to the east. The Lough Neagh catchment drains 43% of the mass of Northern Ireland, as well as some border areas in the Republic of Ireland. The Rivers Agency manages the water level in the using a barrage at Toome. The current drainage scheme was engineered by Major Percy Shepherd and was enabled by the Lough Neagh and Lower Bann Drainage, the levels are regulated between 12.45 metres to 12.6 metres above Ordnance Datum, as defined in the Lough Neagh Scheme 1955. This stretch is one of the most popular fishing rivers in Europe. At Whitecoat Point near Portadown it is joined by the Cusher River and connects with the now disused Newry Canal, although the Upper Bann was officially abandoned as a navigation in 1954, it is still possible to navigate between Whitecoat Point and Lough Neagh. Entrance to the river from Lough Neagh is not easy, as the river is shallow at this point. Once on the river, the jetties for the Bann Ferry are soon reached and it is possible to moor there, to visit the villages of Columbkille to the west or Bannfoot to the east. Bannfoot was originally called Charlestown after its builder, Charles Brownlow, some 6 miles from the mouth, the river is crossed by the M1 motorway. The bridge is the lowest on the section, with an air draught of around 10 feet, although in strong northerly winds, water backs up in the river. From the bridge it is around 3 miles to Portadown, exploration of the town from the river is difficult, because water levels at Shillington Quay and at the jetty a little further upstream are very shallow
23.
Belfast
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Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, the second largest on the island of Ireland, and the heart of the tenth largest Primary Urban Area in the United Kingdom. On the River Lagan, it had a population of 286,000 at the 2011 census and 333,871 after the 2015 council reform, Belfast was granted city status in 1888. Belfast played a key role in the Industrial Revolution, and was an industrial centre until the latter half of the 20th century. It has sustained a major aerospace and missiles industry since the mid 1930s, industrialisation and the inward migration it brought made Belfast Irelands biggest city at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, Belfast remains a centre for industry, as well as the arts, higher education, business, and law, additionally, Belfast city centre has undergone considerable expansion and regeneration in recent years, notably around Victoria Square. Belfast is served by two airports, George Best Belfast City Airport in the city, and Belfast International Airport 15 miles west of the city. Although the county borough of Belfast was created when it was granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1888, the site of Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age. The Giants Ring, a 5, 000-year-old henge, is located near the city, Belfast remained a small settlement of little importance during the Middle Ages. The ONeill clan had a presence in the area, in the 14th century, Cloinne Aodha Buidhe, descendants of Aodh Buidhe ONeill built Grey Castle at Castlereagh, now in the east of the city. Conn ONeill of the Clannaboy ONeills owned vast lands in the area and was the last inhabitant of Grey Castle, evidence of this period of Belfasts growth can still be seen in the oldest areas of the city, known as the Entries. Belfast blossomed as a commercial and industrial centre in the 18th and 19th centuries, industries thrived, including linen, rope-making, tobacco, heavy engineering and shipbuilding, and at the end of the 19th century, Belfast briefly overtook Dublin as the largest city in Ireland. The Harland and Wolff shipyards became one of the largest shipbuilders in the world, in 1886 the city suffered intense riots over the issue of home rule, which had divided the city. In 1920–22, Belfast became the capital of the new entity of Northern Ireland as the island of Ireland was partitioned, the accompanying conflict cost up to 500 lives in Belfast, the bloodiest sectarian strife in the city until the Troubles of the late 1960s onwards. Belfast was heavily bombed during World War II, in one raid, in 1941, German bombers killed around one thousand people and left tens of thousands homeless. Apart from London, this was the greatest loss of life in a raid during the Blitz. Belfast has been the capital of Northern Ireland since its establishment in 1921 following the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and it had been the scene of various episodes of sectarian conflict between its Catholic and Protestant populations. These opposing groups in conflict are now often termed republican and loyalist respectively. The most recent example of conflict was known as the Troubles – a civil conflict that raged from around 1969 to 1998
24.
Derry
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Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name Daire meaning oak grove, in 1613, the city was granted a Royal Charter by King James I and gained the London prefix to reflect the funding of its construction by the London guilds. While the city is usually known colloquially as Derry, Londonderry is also commonly used. The old walled city lies on the west bank of the River Foyle, the city now covers both banks. The population of the city was 83,652 at the 2001 Census, the district administered by Derry City and Strabane District Council contains both Londonderry Port and City of Derry Airport. Derry is close to the border with County Donegal, with which it has had a link for many centuries. In 2013, Derry was the inaugural UK City of Culture, according to the citys Royal Charter of 10 April 1662, the official name is Londonderry. This was reaffirmed in a High Court decision in 2007 when Derry City Council sought guidance on the procedure for effecting a name change. The council had changed its name from Londonderry City Council to Derry City Council in 1984, the decision of the court was that it had not but it was clarified that the correct procedure to do so was via a petition to the Privy Council. Derry City Council since started this process and were involved in conducting an equality impact assessment report, then the EQIA held two consultative forums, and solicited comments from the general public on whether or not the city should have its name changed to Derry. A total of 12,136 comments were received, of which 3,108 were broadly in favour of the proposal, and 9,028 opposed to it. Despite the official name, the city is usually known as Derry, which is an anglicisation of the Irish Daire or Doire. The name derives from the settlements earliest references, Daire Calgaich, the name was changed from Derry in 1613 during the Plantation of Ulster to reflect the establishment of the city by the London guilds. In McCaffertys survey of language use in the city, only very few interviewees—all Protestants—use the official form, apart from the name of Derry City Council, the city is usually known as Londonderry in official use within the UK. In the Republic of Ireland, the city and county are almost always referred to as Derry, on maps, in the media and in conversation. Whereas official road signs in the Republic use the name Derry, usage varies among local organisations, with both names being used. Most companies within the city choose local area such as Pennyburn. Londonderry railway station is referred to as Waterside railway station within the city but is called Derry/Londonderry at other stations
25.
United Kingdom Census 2011
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A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011 and it was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National Statistics is the office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department formed in 2008. ONS designs, manages and runs the census in England and Wales, the first results from the 2011 census, age and sex, and occupied households estimates for England and Wales and Northern Ireland, were released on 16 July 2012. The first results for Scotland, and the first UK-wide results, were published on 17 December 2012, more detailed and specialised data were published from 2013. The Registrar General John Rickman conducted the first census of Great Britains population, from 1911 onwards rapid social change, scientific breakthroughs, and major world events affected the structure of the population. The 1971 census was run by the newly created Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, in 1996 the Office for National Statistics was formed by merging the Central Statistical Office, OPCS and the statistics division of the Department of Employment, the first census it ran was in 2001. In 2008 the UK Statistics Authority was established as an independent body, a population census is a key instrument for assessing the needs of local communities. When related to data sources such as housing or agricultural censuses, or sample surveys. Most countries of the world take censuses, the United Nations recommends that countries take a census at least once every ten years, other organisations that use census data include healthcare organisations, community groups, researchers and businesses. The 2011 census for England and Wales included around 25 million households, people could complete and submit their questionnaire online, or fill it in on paper and post it back in a pre-addressed envelope. Guidance was provided online and through the census helpline, completed questionnaires were electronically tracked and field staff followed up with households that did not return a questionnaire. In these cases field staff delivered and collected questionnaires and, where needed, provided advice or assistance in completing the questionnaire, there was a legal requirement to complete the 2011 census questionnaire, under the terms of the Census Act 1920. As at 27 March 2011 everyone who had lived or intended to live in the country for three months or more was required to complete a questionnaire, failure to return a completed questionnaire could lead to a fine and criminal record. The contract is valued at £150 million, approximately one third of the total £482 million census budget, concerns were raised during contract negotiations that the US PATRIOT Act could be used to force Lockheed Martin to reveal census data to US authorities. The Cabinet Office state that Lockheed Martin will develop the systems used to process census data, neither Lockheed Martin UK nor any Lockheed Martin employee will have access to personal Census data. The Office for National Statistics stated that no census information will ever leave the UK or be seen by any American-owned company. Several groups called for a boycott of the census over the involvement of Lockheed Martin, including the Stop the War Coalition, and the Christian thinktank Ekklesia
26.
Limavady
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Limavady is a market town in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, with Binevenagh as a backdrop. Lying 17 miles east of Derry and 14 miles southwest of Coleraine, in the 30 years between 1971 and 2011, Limavadys population nearly doubled. Limavady is within Causeway Coast and Glens district, Limavady has undergone sustained growth during the past fifty years thanks to significant modern industrial development and public perception of the town as attractive and residential. Limavady, a service hub for the Roe Valley, has seen competition from other retail centres, Derry, Coleraine and, to a lesser extent. From 1988 to 2004, a total of 1,332 dwellings were built in the town, the large industrial estate at Aghanloo is 2 miles north of the town. Limavady and its surrounding settlements derive from Celtic roots, although no-one is sure about the date of Limavadys origins. Estimates date from around 5 CE, early records tell of Saint Columba, who presided over a meeting of the Kings at Mullagh Hill near Limavady in 575 CE, a location which is now part of the Roe Park Golf Resort. Gaelic Ireland was divided into kingdoms, each ruled by its own family or clan, in the Limavady area, the predominate family was the OCahans. Their mark is found everywhere in the town and surrounding area, OCahans Rock is one of Limavadys main historical points. This is where, according to myth, a dog belonging to one of the Chiefs jumped the river to get help from nearby clans after a surprise enemy attack. This gave Limavady its name, Limavady being the version of Leim an Mhadaidh. This rock, along with relics of Limavadys history, can be seen at Roe Valley Country Park. The town developed from a small Plantation settlement founded by Sir Thomas Phillips, in 1610 Sir Thomas Phillips was granted 13,100 acres of land at Limavady which included an O’Cahan castle. He commenced the building of the ‘Newtown of Limavady’ which was out in a cruciform road pattern. Newtown Limavady was incorporated, with the appointment of a Provost and 12 Burgesses, by 1622,18 one-storey houses and an inn had been built and they were centred on the crossroads which contained a flagpole, a cross and stocks. Limavady had an association with the linen and Irish whiskey industries. In 1608, a licence was granted to Sir Thomas Phillips by King James I to distil whiskey, for the next seven years, within the countie of Colrane, otherwise called O Cahanes countrey, or within the territorie called Rowte, in Co. The Limavady Distillery was founded in 1750 on the banks of the River Roe, Limavady, however, did not benefit from subsequent expansion of linen manufacturing in the 19th century
27.
Marina
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A marina is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large ships or cargo from freighters. The word marina is also used for inland wharves on rivers, marinas may be located along the banks of rivers connecting to lakes or seas and may be inland. They are also located on coastal harbors or coastal lagoons, either as stand alone facilities or within a port complex, a marina may have refueling, washing and repair facilities, marine and boat chandlers, stores and restaurants. A marina may include facilities such as parking lots for vehicles. Slipways transfer a trailered boat into the water, a marina may have a boat hoist well operated by service personnel. A marina may provide in- or out-of-water boat storage, fee-based services such as parking, use of picnic areas, pubs, and clubhouses for showers are usually included in long-term rental agreements. Visiting yachtsmen usually have the option of buying each amenity from a fixed schedule of fees, arrangements can be as wide as a use, such as a shower. The right to use the facilities is frequently extended at overnight or period rates to visiting yachtsmen, since marinas are often limited by available space, it may take years on a waiting list to get a permanent berth. Boats are moored on buoys, on fixed or floating walkways tied to an anchoring piling by a roller or ring mechanism, buoys are cheaper to rent but less convenient than being able to walk from land to boat. Harbor shuttles, may transfer people between the shore and boats moored on buoys, the alternative is a tender such as an inflatable boat. Facilities offering fuel, boat ramps and stores will normally have a common-use dock set aside for such short term parking needs, where the tidal range is large, marinas may use locks to maintain the water level for several hours before and after low water. Marinas may be owned and operated by a club, especially yacht clubs —. Marinas may be private businesses, components of a resort. List of marinas MARINA - Maritime Industry Authority
28.
Portrush
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Portrush is a small seaside resort town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, on the County Londonderry border. The main part of the old town, including the station as well as most hotels, restaurants and bars, is built on a mile–long peninsula, Ramore Head. It had a population of 6,454 people as measured by the 2011 Census, in the off-season, Portrush is a dormitory town for the nearby campus of the University of Ulster at Coleraine. It neighbours the resort of Portstewart and it was the base for the Katie Hannan, a Severn class lifeboat and Ken and Mary, a D–class inshore lifeboat of the RNLI. Lifeboats have operated out of Portrush Harbour since 1860, and currently stationed there are the Severn class William Gordon Burr, Portrush is in the East Londonderry constituency for the UK Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly. A number of flint tools found during the nineteenth century show that the site of Portrush was occupied during the Larnian period. The site of Portrush, with its excellent natural defences, probably became a permanent settlement around the 12th or 13th century, a church is known to have existed on Ramore Head at this time, but no part of it now survives. From the records of the taxation of 1306, the Portrush church –. The promontory also held two castles, at varying periods, following the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the mid-seventeenth century, Portrush became a small fishing town. The towns fortunes peaked in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It escaped any involvement in The Troubles until 6 August 1976, in a second attack in April 1987, two officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary were shot in the back by the Provisional Irish Republican Army while on foot patrol on Main Street. Portrush is classified as a Small Town by the Northern Ireland Statistics, the 2011 Census recorded that there were 6,454 people living in Portrush. 4. 97% of people aged 16–74 were unemployed, for more details see, Northern Ireland Neighbourhood Information Service. There are two sandy beaches in the town, known as the West and East Strand. White Rocks and Curran Strand stretch on from the East Strand and are backed by dunes, the coast continues past Dunluce Castle to the Giants Causeway. A13 ft high sculpture, inspired by the sails of local traditional boats, is located at East Strand. Portrush is home to one of Northern Irelands best known nightclubs, the Kellys complex consists of a multitude of bars and clubs and is Northern Irelands largest nightclub complex. It includes the nightclub Lush. which attracts many of the worlds top DJs, Portrush is also home to Barrys Amusements, the largest amusement park in Northern Ireland
29.
Portstewart
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Portstewart is a small town in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 7,803 people in the 2001 Census and it is a seaside resort neighbouring Portrush. Its harbour and scenic coastal paths form an Atlantic promenade leading to 2 miles of golden strand, Portstewart is probably best known for this sandy beach, popular with surfers. Portstewart was a holiday destination for Victorian middle-class families. Its long, crescent-shaped seafront promenade is sheltered by rocky headlands and it is a reasonably prosperous town. Most of the town is contained in the Strand electoral ward, in a deprivation index of electoral wards in Northern Ireland the Strand Ward in the town was ranked 570th out of the 582 wards. House prices in Portstewart have been amongst the highest in Northern Ireland, due to unusually high second home ownership there has been concern in recent years about the pace of development in the town. The number of houses or apartments being purchased has led to rapid inflation of house prices. The town has also many of the students from the nearby Coleraine Campus of the University of Ulster and has a vibrant social and cultural life. Portstewart is one of the most integrated towns in Northern Ireland with the religious demographics similar to the population of Northern Ireland as a whole, Community relations are generally good within the town. Dominican College, a Catholic grammar school, has a significant proportion of Protestant students, Portstewart was founded in 1792 by John Cromie, who named it after his maternal ancestors, the Stewarts of Ballylesse. A Lieutenant Stewart is said to have obtained a lease of land from the Earl of Antrim in 1734, prior to this the area was formerly called in Irish, Port na Binne Uaine, a name related to the nearby island and townland of Benoney. The name Port na Binne Uaine is still used alongside the Gaelicised version Port Stíobhaird. As recently as the mid 18th century Portstewart was little more than a fishing village, Portstewart developed to a modest size seaside resort in the mid 19th century under the influence of a local landlord, John Cromie. Its development and character was influenced greatly by the Sabbatarian sensitivities of the Cromies, the scale of development for the next century was more modest than that of neighbouring Portrush which rapidly expanded with the mass tourism market. Despite a tram connection being provided from Portstewart to Cromore to link with the railway, from the 1950s until into the 1980s the towns main development thrust was as a residential area, with the steady construction of new dwellings in the suburbs mainly for owner occupation. Unlike Portrush where there was an expansion of static caravan parks. Portstewart has a Dominican convent with the attached Dominican College sitting on the edge of a cliff which dominates the end of the Promenade
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Church of Ireland
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The Church of Ireland is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on a basis and is the second-largest Christian church on the island after the Catholic Church in Ireland. Like other Anglican churches, it has retained elements of pre-Reformation practice, notably its episcopal polity, nevertheless, in theological and liturgical matters, it incorporates many principles of the Reformation, particularly those espoused during the English Reformation. The church self identifies as being both Catholic and Reformed, within the church, differences exist between those members who are more Catholic-leaning and those who are more Protestant-leaning. For historical and cultural reasons, the Church of Ireland is generally identified as a Protestant church, the Church of Ireland is the second-largest in the Republic of Ireland, with around 130,000 members, and the third-largest in Northern Ireland, with around 260,000 members. The Church of Ireland describes itself as part of the Irish Church which was influenced by the Reformation. However, the Church of Ireland is also Protestant, or Reformed, since it opposes doctrines and ways of worshiping that it considers contrary to scripture and which led to the Reformation. When the Church of England broke communion with the Holy See, all, the church then became the established church of Ireland, assuming possession of most church property. This church-state link was vigorously applied when the Normans came to Ireland in the 12th century, Bishops were required to do homage to the king for their lands, just like earls and barons, who were vassals of the crown. It was therefore accepted, both during and after the Reformation, that the crown should continue to exercise authority over the church. In this way, church property that existed at the time of the Reformation, in Ireland, the substantial majority of the population continued to adhere to Roman Catholicism, despite the political and economic advantages of membership in the state church. Legitimacy for the Norman invasion of Ireland was derived from a Papal Bull of 1155 – Laudabiliter, the bull gave King Henry II of England authority to invade Ireland ostensibly as a means of reforming the church in Ireland more directly under the control of the Holy See. The authorisation from the Holy See was based upon the Donation of Constantine which made every Christian island in the western Roman Empire the property of the Papacy. The Church of Ireland is the second largest church in Ireland, the Church of Ireland began as a reformed church independent of the Catholic Church in 1536 when the Irish Parliament declared King Henry VIII to be the Supreme Head of the Church on earth. He would not legally become king of Ireland until 1541, adrian granted Henry II the Lordship of Ireland, thus, Henrys assumption of the title of King had less to do with dispossessing the native Irish kings than with confronting the Pope. The reformation commenced mainly in Dublin under the auspices of George Browne during Henrys reign, when the Church of England was reformed under King Edward VI of England, so too was the Church of Ireland. All but two of the Irish bishops appointed by Queen Mary accepted the Elizabethan Settlement, although the vast majority of priests, the Church of Ireland claims Apostolic succession because of the unbroken continuity of the episcopal hierarchy, however, this is disputed by the Roman Catholic Church. In this way, they were able to conform to the established church whilst at the same time continuing to worship. in the traditional
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Ulster University at Coleraine
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Ulster University at Coleraine is the Coleraine campus of Ulster University. It houses the headquarters of the university and is the most traditional in outlook, with a focus on science. The Coleraine campus is situated on the banks of the River Bann in Coleraine, County Londonderry with views to the Causeway Coast, see also University of Ulster history Originally, the concept of a new university was well received by many nationalists in Northern Ireland. This was due to a feeling of bias that unionist communities, or towns, received better facilities, there was no substantial evidence to back up this claim, however it was the idea that led to a number of protests and rallying in opposition. As violent protests continued, the result was that the Lockwood Report was accepted by vote, the campus was founded as the New University of Ulster in 1968 as Northern Irelands second university, its establishment being inspired by the 1965 Lockwood Report. In 1969, Magee College was incorporated into the university, making Coleraine the primary campus of a multi-centre university, in order to meet demand, subjects like French and German were offered in a separate subject called West European Studies. A number of other similar arts subjects were intended to commence at Coleraine, such as East European Studies, Irish Studies, Asian Studies and these subject areas typically included history, two or more languages, social sciences and geography. However, these areas were never fully developed and were offered only as short courses. However, individual subjects in Asian and American Literature and History were developed, in 1984, Coleraine retained the headquarters role in a merger with the Ulster Polytechnic at Jordanstown. The campus is located just north of the town of Coleraine in County Londonderry and near to the coastal resorts of Portstewart. Together these three make up an area known as the Triangle. The campus is also a drive from the spectacular Causeway Coast. The Causeway Coast is an area of outstanding beauty, which boasts the Giants Causeway, there are also ample opportunities for hiking, fishing and boating. The towns of Portstewart and Portrush are where most students reside and these lively towns have plenty of pubs and clubs attracting tourists and students alike. The campus is situated on 300 acres of parklands with landscaped grounds that include tranquil garden areas, within this most attractive landscape lie up-to-date, custom-built facilities for teaching, learning and research. The current Provost is Professor Karise Hutchinson, the campus currently has over 5,050 students and around 1,300 employees, making it by far the largest economic and institutional entity in the north of the province. The Portrush site was closed in 2008, and the School of Hotel, Leisure, Causeway Institute Coleraine Campus Website Portrush Site Website
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Riverside Theatre, Coleraine
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The Riverside Theatre is located at the Coleraine campus of Ulster University in Northern Ireland. It was opened in 1976 and is the fifth-largest professional theatre in Northern Ireland and it is architecturally unique in Northern Ireland for its flexible staging facilities. The Riverside theatre won a award in the year of its completion. It is an established touring venue and it features productions from all over the UK, Europe and North America. The Riverside programme incorporates drama, contemporary dance, rock bands, ballet, opera, variety, childrens shows, pantomime, music recitals and recordings for television and radio
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Britain in Bloom
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RHS Britain in Bloom is the largest horticultural campaign in the United Kingdom. It has been organised by the Royal Horticultural Society since 2002, the competition is entered by the communities of towns, villages and cities. Different categories exist for various sizes of settlements, groups are assessed for their achievements in three core pillars, Horticultural Excellence, Environmental Responsibility, and Community Participation. Over 1,600 communities around the UK enter each year, from these regional competitions, roughly 80 communities are selected to enter the national Finals of RHS Britain in Bloom. It is a campaign, estimated to involve more than 200,000 volunteers in cleaning up. Judging at the stage takes place around June/ July, judging for the national stage takes place in August. The results for the UK Finals are announced in September/ October, the competition covers the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In 2006, the RHS introduced the Neighbourhood Awards, a grassroots campaign to Bloom, supporting smaller. His enquiries revealed that President de Gaulle had given orders to brighten up the country and the French Tourist Authority had set up the Fleurissement de France in 1959. Hay was so impressed that he approached the British Tourist Authority and it was piloted by the British Tourist Authority in 1963, and went national in 1964. Despite this impressive list, Roy Hay later reflected that the reaction of the horticultural trade. Nevertheless, regional committees were formed, and in 1964 Bath became the first national winner. From 1964 to 1969 inclusive there was a national winner. From 1970, however, the competition was divided up into a range of categories, the British Tourist Authority managed the competition until 1983 when the Government Department sponsoring the BTA felt that it should relinquish the responsibility. The Tidy Britain Group took over, it already had an association with the competition. To mark the changeover,1983 was celebrated as Beautiful Britain in Bloom Year, sir Lawrie Barratt of Barratt Developments expressed his support to the Tidy Britain Group for the competition and provided sponsorship until 1989. McDonalds began sponsoring the competition from 1990, which led to focus on littering behaviour, in 2001, the event was organised jointly by EnCams and the Royal Horticultural Society, and from November 2001 the RHS took full control as the organising body of Britain in Bloom. The competition currently has twelve entry categories, most of which are determined by population size and these communities take part in their regional competition, for example South West in Bloom
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Saint Patrick
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Saint Patrick was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the Apostle of Ireland, he is the patron saint of Ireland, along with saints Brigit of Kildare. He is also venerated in the Anglican Communion, the Old Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox Church as equal-to-the-apostles and Enlightener of Ireland. The dates of Patricks life cannot be fixed with certainty but there is agreement that he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the second half of the 5th century. He has been generally so regarded ever since, despite evidence of some earlier Christian presence in Ireland, after becoming a cleric, he returned to northern and western Ireland. In later life, he served as a bishop, but little is known about the places where he worked, by the seventh century, he had already come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patricks Day is observed on 17 March, the date of his death. It is celebrated inside and outside Ireland as a religious and cultural holiday, in the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation, it is also a celebration of Ireland itself. Two Latin works survive which are accepted as having been written by St. Patrick. These are the Declaration and the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus, the Declaration is the more biographical of the two. In it, Patrick gives an account of his life. Most available details of his life are from subsequent hagiographies and annals, the only name that Patrick uses for himself in his own writings is Pātricius, which gives Old Irish Pátraic and Modern Irish Pádraig, English Patrick and Welsh Padrig. Hagiography records other names he is said to have borne, Magonus appears in the ninth century Historia Brittonum as Maun, descending from British *Magunos, meaning servant-lad. Succetus, which appears in Muirchú moccu Machthenis seventh century Life as Sochet, is identified by Mac Neill as a word of British origin meaning swineherd. The dates of Patricks life are uncertain, there are conflicting regarding the year of his death. His own writings provide no evidence for any dating more precise than the 5th century generally, the Letter to Coroticus implies that the Franks were still pagans at the time of writing, their conversion to Christianity is dated to the period 496–508. The Irish annals for the century date Patricks arrival in Ireland at 432. The date 432 was probably chosen to minimise the contribution of Palladius, who was known to have sent to Ireland in 431
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John Colgan
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John Colgan, O. F. M. was an Irish Franciscan friar noted as a hagiographer and historian. Colgan was born c.1592 at Priestown near Carndonagh and he joined the Franciscan Order and was sent to study in the Irish Franciscan College of St. Anthony of Padua in Leuven in present-day Belgium in 1612. He was ordained as a priest in 1618, here he is said to have acted as professor of theology for some time, but he soon forsook the professorial chair to devote himself to the Irish studies for which that college was famous. Father Hugh Ward had projected a complete history of the Irish saints, Ward died before he could make any progress in his work, but the materials that had been gathered remained. Colgan, being a competent master of the Irish language, had thus ready at hand an excellent collection of manuscripts of Irish hagiology and he undertook a great work, to be published in six volumes, dealing with the whole range of Irish ecclesiastical history and antiquities. In 1645 he published at Louvain the third volume of this series, containing the lives of the Irish saints whose feasts occur in the calendar for the months of January, February, and March. The lives of the saints whose feasts occur in the months were to have been published in the last three volumes of the series. The second volume of the series, entitled Trias Thaumaturga, etc. appeared at Louvain in 1647 and it deals with the three great national saints of Ireland, Patrick, Brigid, and Columbcille. In it are contained seven of the ancient lives of St. Patrick, five of St. Columba, and six of St. Brigid. For a long time the Trias Thaumaturga was nearly the only source of information on St. Patrick, Colgan gives a Latin version of the Vita Tripartita which represents a different text from that edited by Stokes, Colgans manuscript seems to have entirely disappeared. In 1655 he published at Antwerp a life of Duns Scotus, in which he undertook to prove that this great Franciscan doctor was born in Ireland, and not in Scotland, as was then frequently asserted. In the Bibliotheca Franciscana Colgan is said to have died in 1647, in 1652 Colgan resigned as a professor, dying at St. Anthonys, Leuven, on 15 January 1658. Colgans work on Irish hagiology is of undoubted value, though unfortunately of very weak constitution, he was a man of great ability and industry, and with a sound critical sense. Colgan, though a fluent Irish speaker, had not, and from the nature of things could not have, hence his judgments about the dating of the manuscripts and about the meaning of certain difficult expressions ought not to be put forward as irreversible. In other words, Colgan should be judged by the criteria of his time, but his opinions are not decisive. The Colgan Heritage Weekend is held annually in Carndonagh, Co, donegal, his home place, at the end of June. His principal works are, Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae, long title, Acta Sanctorum veteris et majoris Scotiae seu Hibernix, Sanctorum Insulae, partim ex variis per Europam MS. Codicibus exscripta, partim ex antiquis monumentis et probatis Auctoribus eruta et congesta, tomus primus qui de Sacris Hiberniae Antiquitatibus est tertius, Januarium, Februarium et Martium complectens
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Plantation of Ulster
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The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation of Ulster – a province of Ireland – by people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of the came from Scotland and England. Small private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while the plantation began in 1609. Most of counties Antrim and Down were privately colonised, colonising Ulster with loyal settlers was seen as a way to prevent further rebellion, as it had been the region most resistant to English control during the preceding century. King James wanted the Plantation to be an enterprise that would settle Protestants in Ulster. The Lord Deputy of Ireland, Arthur Chichester, also saw the Plantation as a scheme to anglicise the Irish, accordingly, the colonists were required to be English-speaking and Protestant. Some of the undertakers and colonists however were Catholic and it has suggested that a significant number of the Scots spoke Gaelic. The Scottish colonists were mostly Presbyterian and the English mostly members of the Church of England, the Plantation of Ulster was the biggest of the Plantations of Ireland. Prior to its conquest in the Nine Years War of the 1590s, Ulster had been the most Gaelic part of Ireland, the area was underdeveloped by mainland European standards of the time, and it possessed few towns or villages. Throughout the 16th century, Ulster was viewed by the English as being underpopulated and undeveloped, an early attempt at plantation of the north of Ireland in the 1570s on the east coast of Ulster by Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, had failed. Many of the Gaelic Irish lived by creaghting and, as a result, the wars fought among Gaelic clans and between the Gaelic and English undoubtedly contributed to depopulation. By 1600 Ulsters total adult population according to Perceval-Maxwell was only 25,000 to 40,000 people. The 16th century English conquest of Ireland was made piece by piece starting in the reign of Henry VIII, during these wars the force of the semi-independent chieftains was broken. The Nine Years War of 1594–1603 provided the background to the Plantation. A confederation of northern Gaelic Chieftains, led by Hugh ONeill, the terms of surrender granted to the rebels were generous, with the principal condition that lands formerly contested by feudal right and Brehon law be held under English law. This would have included grants of land to native Irish lords who had sided with the English during the war. However, the plan was interrupted by the rebellion in 1608 of Sir Cahir ODoherty of Inishowen, the brief rebellion was suppressed by Sir Richard Wingfield at the Battle of Kilmacrennan. After ODohertys death his lands in Inishowen were granted out by the state and this episode prompted Chichester to expand his plans to expropriate the legal titles of all native landowners in the province
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Carrickfergus
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Carrickfergus, colloquially known as Carrick, is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It sits on the shore of Belfast Lough,11 miles from Belfast. The town had a population of 27,903 at the 2011 Census and it is County Antrims oldest town and one of the oldest towns in Ireland as a whole. It is also a townland of 65 acres, a civil parish, the town is the subject of the classic Irish folk song Carrickfergus, a 19th-century translation of an Irish-language song from Munster, which begins with the words, I wish I was in Carrickfergus. The British peerage title of Baron Carrickfergus, which had become extinct in 1883, was bestowed upon Prince William on his day in 2011. The town is said to take its name from Fergus Mór, according to one tale, his ship ran aground on a rock by the shore, which became known as Carraig Fhearghais – the rock of Fergus. As an urban settlement, Carrickfergus far pre-dates the capital city Belfast and was for a period both larger and more prominent than the nearby city. Belfast Lough itself was known as Carrickfergus Bay well into the 17th century, Carrickfergus and the surrounding area was, for a time, treated as a separate county. Segments of the wall are still visible in various parts of the town. Archaeological excavations close to the foundations have yielded many artefacts that have helped historians piece together a picture of the lives of the 12th and 13th century inhabitants. The castle, which is the most prominent landmark of Carrickfergus, is known as one of the best-preserved Norman castles in Ireland. Sometime between 1203 and 1205, De Courcy was expelled from Ulster by Hugh de Lacy, as authorised by King John, De Lacy oversaw the final construction of the castle, which included the gatehouse, drum towers and outer ward. It was at time that he established the nearby St Nicholas Church. De Lacy was relieved of his command of the town in 1210, the Battle of Carrickfergus, part of the Nine Years War, took place in and around the town in November 1597. It was fought between the forces of Queen Elizabeth I and the Scots clan of MacDonnell, and resulted in a defeat for the English. In 1637 the Surveyor General of Customs issued a report compiled from accounts of customs due from each port, of the Ulster ports on the list, Carrickfergus was first, followed by Bangor, Donaghadee, and Strangford. In the same year the town sold its customs rights - which ran from Groomsport, County Down up to Larne and this in part led to its decline in importance as the province of Ulster grew. Nevertheless, the castle withstood several days of siege by the forces of William of Orange in 1689
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Bangor, County Down
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Bangor is a large town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a resort on the southern side of Belfast Lough. In 2007 the town was voted by UTV viewers as the most desirable place to live in Northern Ireland. It functions as a town for the Greater Belfast area, which it is linked to by the A2 road. Bangor is situated 13.6 miles east from the heart of Belfast, Bangor is part of the North Down area. The largest plot of land in the area, the Clandeboye Estate. Bangor hosts the Royal Ulster and Ballyholme Yacht clubs, Bangor Marina is one of the largest in both Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, and holds Blue Flag status. The town is twinned with Bregenz in Austria and Virginia Beach in the United States, the town was originally called Inver Beg after the stream which ran past the abbey. The name Bangor is derived from the Irish word Beannchor meaning a horned or peaked curve or perhaps a staked enclosure and it may also be linked to Beanna, the Irish for cliffs. The area was known as The Vale of Angels, as Saint Patrick once rested there and is said to have had a vision filled with angels. The shield is emblazoned with two ships, which feature the Red Hand of Ulster on their sails, denoting that Bangor is in the province of Ulster, the blue and white stripes on the shield show that Bangor is a seaside town. Supporting the shield are two sharks, signifying Bangors links with the sea, each is charged with a gold roundle, the left featuring a shamrock to represent Ireland, and the right featuring a bulls head, possibly in reference to the derivation of the towns name. The arms are crested by a haloed St Comgall, founder of the towns abbey, the motto reads Beannchor, the archaic form of the towns name in Irish. The town has prospered as an important port, a centre of production. Today it is a retail centre and a commuter town for Belfast. The monastery had such influence that the town is one of only four places in Ireland to be named in the Hereford Mappa Mundi in 1300. Saint Malachy was elected Abbot of the monastery in 1123, a year before being consecrated Bishop of Connor, Bangors founder, Comgall, was born in Antrim in 517. Originally a soldier, he took monastic vows and was educated for his new life
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Donaghadee
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Donaghadee is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the northeast coast of the Ards Peninsula, about 18 miles east of Belfast and it is in the civil parish of Donaghadee and the historic barony of Ards Lower. It had a population of 6,869 people in the 2011 Census, in the 17th century Ulster ports began to rise in prominence. In 1625 William Pitt was appointed as Customer of the ports of Newcastle, Dundrum, Killough, Portaferry, Donaghadee, Bangor, in 1637 the Surveyor General of Customs issued a report compiled from accounts of customs due from each port and their subsidiary creeks. Of the Ulster ports on the list, Carrickfergus was first, followed by Bangor, Donaghadee, the town also featured in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. On the morning of Pike Sunday,10 June 1798 a force of United Irishmen, mainly from Bangor, Donaghadee, Greyabbey and they met with musket fire from the market house and were defeated. Donaghadee was used in the 1759–1826 period by couples going to Portpatrick, Wigtown, Scotland to marry, during this period, Portpatrick was known as the Gretna Green for Ireland. The lifeboat station at Donaghadee harbour, founded in 1910, is one of the most important on the Irish coast, RNLB Sir Samuel Kelly is a famous lifeboat once based in Donaghadee and now on show and preserved at the harbour for her gallant efforts over 50 years ago. On 31 January 1953 the lifeboat rescued 32 survivors in the Irish Sea from the stricken Larne–Stranraer car ferry, in the 2011 Census Donaghadee had a population of 6,869 people. Donaghadee is classified as a town by the Northern Ireland Statistics. On Census day there were 6,470 people living in Donaghadee, for centuries, it has been a haven for ships, and the harbour has been there from at least the 17th century. Sir Hugh Montgomery built a stone quay to accommodate vessels ferrying between Scotland and Ireland from 1616 onwards. It was described by Harris in 1744 as a curving quay about 400 feet long and 22 feet wide built of uncemented stones. It ran from the shore at the end of the Parade in a broad arc, bent against the open sea. The old quay remained until after the completion of the new harbour, the foundation stone of the new harbour was laid by the Marquess of Downshire on 1 August 1821. The initial plans and surveys for this undertaking were made by John Rennie Senior. The new harbour had to have greater depth to accommodate steam packets and this Anglesea marble lends itself to the finest ashlar dressing and the new piers remain a triumph of stone carving. The flights of steps display special skill in the deep diagonal binding of each step, providing a typically robust engineers response to the wear of seaboots
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Strangford
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Strangford is a small village at the mouth of Strangford Lough in County Down, Northern Ireland. It has a population of 475 according to the 2001 Census, on the other side of the lough is Portaferry. Transport NI an executive agency of the Department for Infrastructure operates the Portaferry - Strangford Ferry service across Strangford Lough between the villages of Strangford and Portaferry. To travel the distance between Strangford and Portaferry by road is approximately 75 kilometres and takes about an hour and a half by car, by contrast, the ferry route is approximately 0.6 nautical miles with a typical crossing time of about 8 minutes. The village has a harbour, which is overlooked by rows of 19th-century cottages. In 1637 the Surveyor General of Customs issued a report compiled from accounts of customs due from each port, of the Ulster ports on the list, Carrickfergus was first, followed by Bangor, Donaghadee and Strangford. Strangford was the home of King Magnus Olafson. Upon his attempted siege of Uladh he set up his fort in the of Strangford. This was a place for him to base himself and his army as he had good fortified grounds. The only known celebration of King Magnus time in Ulster is demonstrated at Delamont Country Park, by the Downpatrick-based living history group, the Magnus Viking Association. Strangford has two football teams who compete in the Newcastle & District Football League. Strangford Castle, near the harbour in Strangford, is a 16th-century tower house with a hole at roof level to defend the door. Castle Ward is a mansion built in 1760 in two distinct architectural styles, Classical and Gothic, overlooking Strangford Lough. The property is owned by the National Trust, castleward is seven miles from Downpatrick and one-and-one-half miles from Strangford. Audleys Castle is a 15th-century castle one mile northeast of Strangford, on a height overlooking Strangford Lough, grid ref. Audleystown Court Cairn is a dual court grave near the shore of Strangford Lough, north-west of Castle Ward,1.75 miles from Strangford. NI Neighbourhood Information Service Culture Northern Ireland Strangford Lough Online
