1.
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
2.
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
3.
Academy Award for Best Actor
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The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Emil Jannings receiving the award for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actors were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actor is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, since its inception, the award has been given to 79 actors. Daniel Day-Lewis has received the most awards in this category with three Oscars, spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were nominated on nine occasions, more than any other actor. As of the 2017 ceremony, Casey Affleck is the most recent winner in category for his role as Lee Chandler in Manchester by the Sea. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
4.
Queen's University Belfast
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Queens University Belfast is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The university was chartered in 1845, and opened in 1849 as Queens College, Belfast, but has roots going back to 1810, the university forms the focal point of the Queens Quarter area of the city, one of Belfasts four cultural districts. It offers academic degrees at various levels and across a broad subject range, since 1 March 2014, Patrick Johnston has been the university’s 12th President and Vice-Chancellor. The university is associated with two Nobel laureates and one Turing Award laureate, Queens College, Belfast, opened in 1849. Its main building, the Lanyon Building, was designed by the English architect, at its opening, it had 23 professors and 343 students. Some early students at Queens University Belfast took University of London examinations, the university was one of only eight United Kingdom universities to hold a parliamentary seat in the House of Commons at Westminster until such representation was abolished in 1950. The university was represented in the Parliament of Northern Ireland from 1920–1968. On 20 June 2006, the university announced a £259 million investment programme focusing on facilities, recruitment, the building has been named in honour of Sir Allen McClay, a major benefactor of Queens University and of the Library. In June 2010, the university announced the launch of a £7. 5m Ansin international research hub with Seagate Technologies. In addition to the campus not far from the centre of Belfast. Although offering a range of courses, these colleges primarily provide training for those wishing to enter the teaching profession. The university has formal agreements with colleges in Northern Ireland. The current chancellor is the businessman Thomas Moran, academics at Queens are organised into fifteen schools across three faculties. The three faculties are the Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, the Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences, each of the 20 schools operates as a primary management unit of the university and the schools are the focus for education and research for their respective subject areas. On Feb 18th 2016 BBC Northern Ireland reported that this Institute was to be closed, Institute of Cognition and Culture - Founded in 2004, this is one of the world’s first centres for research in the cognitive science of culture. It has brought together a range of cutting-edge cognitive scientists via a series of visiting fellowships, Institute of Irish Studies - The Institute of Irish Studies celebrated its 50th birthday in March 2015. Institute of Professional Legal Studies - The Institute of Professional Legal Studies was established in 1977 at Queens University Belfast and it provides an internationally recognised and unique one-year postgraduate course for trainee barristers and trainee solicitors who study together. In all five colleges teach any programmes with a emphasis on behalf of the university
5.
Dublin
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Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Dublin is in the province of Leinster on Irelands east coast, the city has an urban area population of 1,345,402. The population of the Greater Dublin Area, as of 2016, was 1,904,806 people, founded as a Viking settlement, the Kingdom of Dublin became Irelands principal city following the Norman invasion. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire before the Acts of Union in 1800, following the partition of Ireland in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland. Dublin is administered by a City Council, the city is listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a global city, with a ranking of Alpha-, which places it amongst the top thirty cities in the world. It is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration, economy, the name Dublin comes from the Irish word Dubhlinn, early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind, dubh /d̪uβ/, alt. /d̪uw/, alt /d̪u, / meaning black, dark, and lind /lʲiɲ pool and this tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, on the site of the castle gardens at the rear of Dublin Castle. In Modern Irish the name is Duibhlinn, and Irish rhymes from Dublin County show that in Dublin Leinster Irish it was pronounced Duílinn /d̪ˠi, other localities in Ireland also bear the name Duibhlinn, variously anglicized as Devlin, Divlin and Difflin. Historically, scribes using the Gaelic script wrote bh with a dot over the b and those without knowledge of Irish omitted the dot, spelling the name as Dublin. Variations on the name are found in traditionally Irish-speaking areas of Scotland, such as An Linne Dhubh. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. Baile Átha Cliath, meaning town of the ford, is the common name for the city in modern Irish. Áth Cliath is a name referring to a fording point of the River Liffey near Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath was an early Christian monastery, believed to have been in the area of Aungier Street, there are other towns of the same name, such as Àth Cliath in East Ayrshire, Scotland, which is Anglicised as Hurlford. Although the area of Dublin Bay has been inhabited by humans since prehistoric times and he called the settlement Eblana polis. It is now thought that the Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical settlement known as Duibhlinn, beginning in the 9th and 10th century, there were two settlements where the modern city stands. The subsequent Scandinavian settlement centred on the River Poddle, a tributary of the Liffey in an area now known as Wood Quay, the Dubhlinn was a small lake used to moor ships, the Poddle connected the lake with the Liffey. This lake was covered during the early 18th century as the city grew, the Dubhlinn lay where the Castle Garden is now located, opposite the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle
6.
Republic of Ireland
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Ireland, also known as the Republic of Ireland, is a sovereign state in north-western Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, which is located on the part of the island. The state shares its land border with Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, Saint Georges Channel to the south-east, and it is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The head of government is the Taoiseach, who is elected by the Dáil and appointed by the President, the state was created as the Irish Free State in 1922 as a result of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, Ireland became a member of the United Nations in December 1955. It joined the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, after joining the EEC, Ireland enacted a series of liberal economic policies that resulted in rapid economic growth. The country achieved considerable prosperity between the years of 1995 and 2007, which known as the Celtic Tiger period. This was halted by a financial crisis that began in 2008. However, as the Irish economy was the fastest growing in the EU in 2015, Ireland is again quickly ascending league tables comparing wealth and prosperity internationally. For example, in 2015, Ireland was ranked as the joint sixth most developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index and it also performs well in several national performance metrics, including freedom of the press, economic freedom and civil liberties. Ireland is a member of the European Union and is a member of the Council of Europe. The 1922 state, comprising 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, was styled, the Constitution of Ireland, adopted in 1937, provides that the name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland. Section 2 of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 states, It is hereby declared that the description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland. The 1948 Act does not name the state as Republic of Ireland, because to have done so would have put it in conflict with the Constitution. The government of the United Kingdom used the name Eire, and, from 1949, Republic of Ireland, for the state, as well as Ireland, Éire or the Republic of Ireland, the state is also referred to as the Republic, Southern Ireland or the South. In an Irish republican context it is referred to as the Free State or the 26 Counties. From the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, during the Great Famine, from 1845 to 1849, the islands population of over 8 million fell by 30%
7.
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
8.
Queen's University
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Queens University at Kingston is a public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841 via a charter issued by Queen Victoria. Queens holds more than 1,400 hectares of land throughout Ontario and owns Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, Queens is organized into ten undergraduate, graduate and professional faculties and schools. The Church of Scotland established Queens College in 1841 with a charter from Queen Victoria. The first classes, intended to prepare students for the ministry, were held 7 March 1842 with 13 students, Queens was the first university west of the maritime provinces to admit women and to form a student government. In 1883, a college for medical education affiliated with Queens University was established. In 1888, Queens University began offering courses, becoming the first Canadian university to do so. In 1912, Queens secularized and changed to its present legal name, Queens is a co-educational university, with more than 23,000 students, and with over 131,000 living alumni worldwide. Notable alumni include government officials, academics, business leaders and 57 Rhodes Scholars, Queens varsity teams, known as the Golden Gaels, compete in the Ontario University Athletics conference of U Sports. Queens was a result of an outgrowth of educational initiatives planned by Presbyterians in the 1830s, a draft plan for the university was presented at a synod meeting in Kingston in 1839, with a modified bill introduced through the 13th Parliament of Upper Canada during a session in 1840. On 16 October 1841, a charter was issued through Queen Victoria establishing Queens College at Kingston. They modelled the university after the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow, classes began on 7 March 1842, in a small wood-frame house on the edge of the city with two professors and 15 students. The college moved several times during its first eleven years, before settling in its present location, prior to Canadian Confederation, the college was financially supported by the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, the Canadian government and private citizens. The college was rescued after Principal William Snodgrass and other created a fundraising campaign across Canada. The risk of financial ruin continued to worry the administration until the final decade. They actively considered leaving Kingston and merging with the University of Toronto as late as the 1880s, with the additional funds bequeathed from Queens first major benefactor, Robert Sutherland, the college staved off financial failure and maintained its independence. Queens was given university status on 17 May 1881, in 1883, Womens Medical College was founded at Queens with a class of three. Theological Hall, completed in 1880, originally served as Queens main building throughout the late 19th century, in 1912, Queens separated from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and changed its name to Queens University at Kingston
9.
Seamus Heaney
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Seamus Justin Heaney, MRIA was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, born near Castledawson, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, the family moved to nearby Bellaghy when he was a boy. Heaney became a lecturer at St. Josephs College in Belfast in the early 1960s, after attending Queens University and he lived in Sandymount, Dublin, Republic of Ireland, from 1976 until his death. He also lived part-time in the United States from 1981 to 2006, Heaney was recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry during his lifetime. Heaney was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, from 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996, was made a Commandeur de lOrdre des Arts et Lettres, in 2011, he was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and in 2012, a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust. His literary papers are held by the National Library of Ireland, American poet Robert Lowell described him as the most important Irish poet since Yeats, and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was the greatest poet of our age. Robert Pinsky has stated that with his gift of eye. Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as probably the best-known poet in the world, one of his best known works is Death of a Naturalist, published in 1966. His body is buried at the Cemetery of St. Marys Church, Bellaghy, County Londonderry, the headstone bears the epitaph WALK ON AIR AGAINST YOUR BETTER JUDGEMENT, from one of his poems. Heaney was born on 13 April 1939, at the farmhouse called Mossbawn. In 1953, his family moved to Bellaghy, a few miles away and his father, Patrick Heaney, was the eighth child of ten born to James and Sarah Heaney. Patrick was a farmer, but his commitment was to cattle dealing. Heaneys mother, Margaret Kathleen McCann, who bore nine children and her uncles and relations were employed in the local linen mill, and her aunt had worked as a maid for the mill owners family. Heaney initially attended Anahorish Primary School, when he was years old, he won a scholarship to St. Columbs College. Heaneys brother, Christopher, was killed in an accident at the age of four while Heaney was studying at St. Columbs. The poems Mid-Term Break and The Blackbird of Glanmore are related to his brothers death, in 1957, Heaney travelled to Belfast to study English Language and Literature at Queens University Belfast. During his time in Belfast, he found a copy of Ted Hughess Lupercal, suddenly, the matter of contemporary poetry was the material of my own life, he said
10.
Performing arts
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Performing arts are a form of art in which artists use their voices and/or their bodies, often in relation to other objects, to convey artistic expression. It is different from visual arts, which is when artists use paint/canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects, performing arts include several disciplines, each performed in front of a live audience. Artists who participate in performing arts in front of an audience are called performers, examples of these include actors, comedians, dancers, magicians, circus artists, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are supported by workers in related fields, such as songwriting, choreography. A performer who excels in acting, singing, and dancing is commonly referred to as a triple threat, well-known examples of historical triple threat artists include Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Judy Garland. Performers often adapt their appearance, such as costumes and stage makeup, stage lighting. Performing arts may include dance, music, opera, theatre and musical theatre, magic, illusion, mime, spoken word, puppetry, circus arts, performance art, recitation and public speaking. There is also a form of fine art, in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. Most performance art also involves some form of art, perhaps in the creation of props. Dance was often referred to as an art during the Modern dance era. Theatre is the branch of performing arts, concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience, using a combination of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound, any one or more of these elements is performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative style of plays. In the context of performing arts, dance generally refers to movement, typically rhythmic and to music. Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement to codified, in dance, the connection between the two concepts is stronger than in some other arts, and neither can exist without the other. Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who practices this art is called a choreographer, music is an art form which combines pitch, rhythm, and dynamic in order to create sound. It can be performed using a variety of instruments and styles and is divided into genres, as an art form, music can occur in live or recorded formats, and can be planned or improvised. Starting in the 6th century BC, the Classical period of performing art began in Greece and these poets wrote plays which, in some cases, incorporated dance. The Hellenistic period began the use of comedy
11.
Ulster University
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Ulster University, officially the University of Ulster, is a multi-campus public university located in Northern Ireland. It is often referred to informally and unofficially as Ulster, or by the abbreviation UU and it is the second largest university on the island of Ireland, after the federal National University of Ireland. Established in 1968 as the New University of Ulster, it merged with Ulster Polytechnic in 1984, the university incorporated its four campuses in 1984, located in Belfast, Coleraine, Magee College in Derry, and Jordanstown. The university has campuses in both London and Birmingham, and an extensive distance learning provision. The university rebranded as Ulster University from October 2014 and this included a visual identity. However its official name remains the University of Ulster as its charter remains unchanged and it has one of the highest further study and employment rates in the UK, with over 90% of graduates being in work or further study six months after graduation. The university is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the New University of Ulster incorporated Magee College founded in 1865 in Derry. In 1953 Magee College broke its links with Dublin and became Magee University College and it was hoped by groups led by the University for Londonderry Committee that this university college would become Northern Irelands second university after The Queens University of Belfast. The decision caused an outcry at the time, the university was built at Coleraine as part of Her Majestys Governments expansion of higher education in the 1960s. Whilst the university was established in 1968 it can trace its roots back to 1845 when Magee College was endowed in Derry, and 1849, when the School of Art and Design was inaugurated in Belfast. Campus One, the Virtual Campus of the university, was launched on 8 October 2001 which successfully facilitated the provision on undergraduate and postgraduate level courses via distance learning, the university now simply refers to this as distance learning. The university formerly had a laboratory named ‘The University of Ulster Freshwater Laboratory’ on the shore of Lough Neagh in Ballymaguigan, the Freshwater Laboratory, although not a campus was a site of the university and consisted of on-campus accommodation, classrooms and testing labs. Courses offered were in agriculture, the wildlife of Lough Neagh, water testing, the site is now owned by Magherafelt District Council. By 2010, the area had become popular with the locals for camping, fishing and sailing, in autumn 2011 Vice-Chancellor Barnett announced a programme of financial restructuring with the aim of reducing the number of staff employed by the University from 3,150 to 3,000. Four university campuses are situated in Northern Ireland in Belfast, Coleraine, Derry, additionally, two further branch campuses in both London and Birmingham in England deliver courses. An online distance learning provision also offers Ulster University courses globally, the university was subsequently selected by the European Commission to deliver the worlds first Higher Educational Programme in Hydrogen Safety Engineering. The Belfast campus is situated in the artistic and cultural centre of the city, the award-winning Law Clinic is based at the Belfast campus, offering free legal advice on social security and employment law. The campus comprises purpose-built design spaces, studios for recording and editing live and off-air television, sound recording, mixing and animation and teaching, the campus plays host to frequent fashion and art exhibitions
12.
Gerry Adams
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Gerard Adams is an Irish republican politician who is the president of the Sinn Féin political party and a Teachta Dála for Louth since the 2011 general election. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Member of Parliament of the British Parliament for the Belfast West constituency and he has been the president of Sinn Féin since 1983. Since that time the party has become the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland, the second-largest political party in Northern Ireland, in 1984, Adams was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by several gunmen from the Ulster Defence Association, including John Gregg. In 2005, the Provisional Irish Republican Army stated that its campaign was over. In 2014, he was held for four days by the Police Service of Northern Ireland for questioning in connection with the abduction and he was freed without charge and a file was sent to the Public Prosecution Service, which later stated there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Adams was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and his parents, Gerry Adams, Sr. and Anne Hannaway, came from republican backgrounds. His grandfather, also named Gerry Adams, had been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood during the Irish War of Independence, two of Adamss uncles, Dominic and Patrick Adams, had been interned by the governments in Belfast and Dublin. J. Bowyer Bell states in his book, The Secret Army that Dominic Adams was a figure in the IRA of the mid-1940s. Gerry Adams Sr. joined the IRA at age sixteen, in 1942, he participated in an IRA ambush on a Royal Ulster Constabulary patrol but was himself shot, arrested and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. Adamss maternal great-grandfather, Michael Hannaway, was also a member of the IRB during its campaign in England in the 1860s and 1870s. Michaels son, Billy, was election agent for Éamon de Valera at the Irish general election,1918 in West Belfast, Adams attended St Finians Primary School on the Falls Road, where he was taught by La Salle brothers. Having passed the exam in 1960, he attended St Marys Christian Brothers Grammar School. He left St Marys with six O-levels and became a barman, in 1971, Adams married Collette McArdle, with whom he has one son, Gearoid who has played Gaelic football for Antrim GAA senior mens team and was its assistant manager in 2012. In the late 1960s, a civil rights campaign developed in Northern Ireland, Adams was an active supporter and joined the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967. However, the civil rights movement was met with violence from loyalist counter-demonstrations, in August 1969, Northern Ireland cities like Belfast and Derry erupted in major rioting. British troops were called in at the request of the Government of Northern Ireland, Adams was active in rioting at this time and later became involved in the republican movement. In August 1971, internment was reintroduced to Northern Ireland under the Special Powers Act 1922, Adams was interned in March 1972, on HMS Maidstone, but on the Provisional IRAs insistence was released in June to take part in secret, but abortive talks in London. The IRA negotiated a truce with the British government and an IRA delegation met with British Home Secretary William Whitelaw at Cheyne Walk in Chelsea
