St Andrews Agreement
The St Andrews Agreement (; Ulster Scots: ''St Andra's 'Greement'', ''St Andrew's Greeance'' or ''St Andrae's Greeance'') is an agreement between the British and Irish governments and Northern Ireland's political parties in relation to the devolution of power in the region. The agreement resulted from multi-party talks held in St Andrews in Fife, Scotland, from 11 to 13 October 2006, between the two governments and all the major parties in Northern Ireland, including the two largest, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin. It resulted in the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the formation (on 8 May 2007) of a new Northern Ireland Executive and a decision by Sinn Féin to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland, courts and rule of law. The agreement Key elements of the agreement included the full acceptance of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) by Sinn Féin, restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly and a commitment by the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ulster Scots Dialects
Ulster Scots or Ulster-Scots (), also known as Ulster Scotch and Ullans, is the dialect (whose proponents assert is a dialect of Scots language, Scots) spoken in parts of Ulster, being almost exclusively spoken in parts of Northern Ireland and County Donegal.Gregg, R. J. (1972) "The Scotch-Irish Dialect Boundaries in Ulster" in Wakelin, M. F., ''Patterns in the Folk Speech of the British Isles'', London: Athlone PressMacafee, C. (2001) "Lowland Sources of Ulster Scots" in J. M. Kirk & D. P. Ó Baoill, ''Languages Links: the Languages of Scotland and Ireland'', Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, p. 121 It is normally considered a dialect or group of dialects of Scots, although groups such as the Ulster-Scots Language Society and Ulster-Scots Academy consider it a language in its own right, and the Ulster-Scots Agency and former Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (Northern Ireland), Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure have used the term Ulster-Scots language. Some d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Northern Ireland Secretary
The secretary of state for Northern Ireland (; ), also referred to as Northern Ireland Secretary or SoSNI, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the Northern Ireland Office. The officeholder is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The incumbent secretary of state for Northern Ireland is Hilary Benn. The officeholder works alongside the other Northern Ireland Office ministers. The corresponding shadow minister is the shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland. History Historically, the principal ministers for Irish (and subsequently Northern Ireland) affairs in the UK Government and its predecessors were: * the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ( 1171–1922); * the Chief Secretary for Ireland (1560–1922); and * the Home Secretary (1922–1972). In August 1969, for example, Home Secretary James Callaghan approved the sending of British Army soldiers to Northern Ireland. Scotland and Wales were represented ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alliance Party Of Northern Ireland
The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), or simply Alliance, is a liberal and centrist political party in Northern Ireland. Following the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, it was the third-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, holding seventeen seats. It broke through by achieving third place in first preference votes in the 2019 European Parliament election and polling third-highest regionally at the 2019 UK general election. The party won one of the three Northern Ireland seats in the European Parliament, and one seat, North Down, in the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Founded in 1970 from the New Ulster Movement, the Alliance Party originally represented moderate and non-sectarian unionism. However, over time, particularly in the 1990s, it moved towards neutrality on the Union, and came to represent wider liberal and non-sectarian concerns. It supports the Good Friday Agreement but maintains a desir ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mark Durkan
Mark Durkan (born 26 June 1960) is a retired Irish nationalist politician from Northern Ireland. Durkan was the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from November 2001 to October 2002, and the Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) from 2001 to 2010. He contested the Dublin (European Parliament constituency), Dublin constituency for Fine Gael at the 2019 European Parliament election in Ireland, 2019 European Parliament election. Early life John Mark Durkan was born in Derry, County Londonderry; his father, Brendan, was a Royal Ulster Constabulary District Inspector in Armagh. He was raised by his mother, Isobel, after his father was killed in a road accident in 1961. He was educated at St. Patrick's Primary School and at St. Columb's College, where he was Head Boy. He studied politics at the Queen's University of Belfast (QUB), and later did a part-time postgraduate course in Public Policy Management with the University of Ulster at Magee. While at QUB Du ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Social Democratic And Labour Party
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP; ) is a social democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland Assembly ( MLAs) and two members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The SDLP party platform advocates Irish reunification and, pending the unity of all the people of Ireland and while the northern jurisdiction remains part of the United Kingdom, further devolution of powers. It is a sister party of the UK Labour Party, which maintains an electoral pact with the SDLP not to stand candidates in Northern Ireland but to support SDLP candidates instead. MPs from the SDLP sit with Labour MPs on the government benches when Labour is in power, but do not take the Labour whip, though they informally did so historically. During the Troubles, the SDLP was the most popular Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland, but since the Provisional IRA ceasefire in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Seamus Mallon
Seamus Frederick Mallon ( ; 17 August 1936 – 24 January 2020) was an Irish politician who served as deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2001 and Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) from 1979 to 2001. He also sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1986 to 2005. Background Seamus Mallon was born in the largely Protestant village of Markethill to Jane (née O'Flaherty) and Francis Mallon, and was educated at the Abbey Christian Brothers Grammar School in Newry and St Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh. He came from a family of Republicans, and his father was a former IRA man who had fought in the Irish Civil War. His mother, Jane, also from a Republican family, was from Castlefin, a village in the east of County Donegal. He trained to be a teacher at St Mary's University College, Belfast. As a career he (like his father) chose teaching, and became headmaster of St James's Primary School in Markethill. Mallon wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Belfast Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement ( or ; or ) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s. It is made up of the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties, and the BritishIrish Agreement between the British and Irish governments. Northern Ireland's present devolved system of government is based on the agreement. Issues relating to sovereignty, governance, discrimination, military and paramilitary groups, justice and policing were central to the agreement. It restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of "power sharing" and it included acceptance of the principle of consent, commitment to civil and political rights, cultural parity of esteem, police reform, paramilitary disarmament and early ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reg Empey
Reginald Norman Morgan Empey, Baron Empey, (born 26 October 1947), best known as Reg Empey, is a Northern Irish politician who served as the acting First Minister of Northern Ireland in 2001. He was the Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 2005 Ulster Unionist Party leadership election, 2005 to 2010 Ulster Unionist Party leadership election, 2010 and served as chairman of the party from 2012 to 2019. Empey was a Member of the Legislative Assembly (Northern Ireland), Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast East (Assembly constituency), East Belfast from 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election, 1998 to 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2011. Early life and career Reg Empey was born in West Belfast on 26 October 1947. His family were retailers, and his uncle was Stormont Ulster Unionist MP Joseph Morgan (politician), Joseph Morgan. Empey attended Hillcrest Preparatory School, Belfast, and The Royal School, Arm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movement. Following the partition of Ireland, it was the Ruling party, governing party of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. It was supported by most unionist voters throughout the conflict known as the Troubles, during which time it was often referred to as the Official Unionist Party (OUP). Under David Trimble, the party helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which ended the conflict. Trimble served as the first First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002. However, it was overtaken as the largest unionist party 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election, in 2003 by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). As of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gerry Adams
Gerard Adams (; born 6 October 1948) is a retired Irish Republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he won election as a Member of Parliament (MP) of the UK Parliament for the Belfast West constituency, but followed the Sinn Féin policy of abstentionism. Adams first became involved in Irish republicanism in the late 1960s, and was an established figure in Irish activism for more than a decade before his 1983 election to Parliament. In 1984, Adams was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). From the late 1980s onwards, he was an important figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, entering into talks initially with Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and then subsequently with the Irish and British governments. In 1986, he convinced ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 to 2008. Paisley became a Protestant evangelical minister in 1946 and remained one for the rest of his life. In 1951 he co-founded the Reformed fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and was its leader until 2008. Paisley became known for his fiery sermons and regularly preached anti-Catholicism, anti-ecumenism and against homosexuality. He gained a large group of followers who were referred to as Paisleyites. Paisley became involved in Ulster unionist/loyalist politics in the late 1950s. In the mid-late 1960s he led and instigated loyalist opposition to the Catholic civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. This contributed to the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bertie Ahern
Bartholomew Patrick "Bertie" Ahern (born 12 September 1951) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach from 1997 to 2008, and as Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1994 to 2008. A Teachta Dála (TD) from 1977 to 2011, he served as Leader of the Opposition (Ireland), Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997. He was also Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1986 to 1987, Tánaiste from November to December 1994, and Minister for Finance (Ireland), Minister for Finance from 1991 to 1994. Fianna Fáil led #Governments, three coalition governments under Ahern's leadership; he is the second-longest serving Taoiseach, after Éamon de Valera. He resigned as Taoiseach on 6 May 2008, in the wake of revelations made by the Mahon Tribunal over payments received from developers; he was succeeded by Brian Cowen. Fianna Fáil proposed to expel politicians censured by the tribunal, but Ahern resigned his membership prior to the expulsion motion. In 2016, Fianna Fáil announced that it ha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |