Confusion also arises as to when and how referendums would be called. The Agreement is clear that both Governments can call referendums in their respective jurisdictions at ANY time. In fact, the former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, David Trimble, who was part of the Agreement negotiations, called for the holding of a referendum in 2002 to coincide with the Assembly election.
A second provision on the referendum is that a British Secretary of State MUST call a referendum “if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Irel
This week marks the anniversary of the reintroduction of internment without trial in the North of Ireland in 1971.
Since the partition of Ireland in 1922, the British Unionist-controlled government in Stormont had interned Irish Republican prisoners in every decade up until the 1970s. My grandfather was interned in the 1940s, an uncle in the 1950’s and two uncles in the 1970s. As a family, we knew the cost of the internment.
Areas hardest hit by the Great Irish Famine did not experience an expected stunting in height of the population, new academic research has found.
The research from Queen’s Business School in Belfast and Edinburgh Business School has examined the impact of one of the defining events in Irish history.