The culture of Northern Ireland relates to the traditions of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 and its resident communities.

Elements of the culture of Ireland

Culture of Ireland

This article is about the modern culture of Ireland and the Irish people. It includes customs and traditions, language, music, art, literature, folklore, cuisine and sport associated with Ireland and Irish people today. However, the culture of the people living in Ireland is not homogeneous...

, the culture of Ulster

Culture of Ulster

Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland. Due to large-scale plantations of people from Scotland and England during the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as half a century of paramilitary activity, Ulster has a unique culture, quite different from the rest of Ireland...

 and the culture of the United Kingdom

Culture of the United Kingdom

The culture of the United Kingdom refers to the patterns of human activity and symbolism associated with the United Kingdom and its people. It is informed by the UK's history as a developed island country, major power, and its composition of four countries—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and...

 are to be found.

Heritage

Since 1998 the Ulster Museum

Ulster Museum

The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, numismatics, industrial...

, Armagh Museum, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum

Ulster Folk and Transport Museum

The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum is situated in Cultra, Northern Ireland, about east of the city of Belfast. It comprises two separate museums, the Folk Museum and the Transport Museum...

 and the Ulster American Folk Park

Ulster American Folk Park

The Ulster American Folk Park is an open-air museum in Castletown, just outside Omagh, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The Park explores the historical link between Ulster and America, focusing particularly on the lifestyle and experiences of those immigrants who sailed from Ulster to America...

 have been administered by the (National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland).

The Linen Hall Library, the oldest library in Belfast, has endured many changes of fortune since its foundation in 1788, but has maintained a vision of providing access to literature and local studies to the population at large.

• Abbeys and priories in Northern Ireland
  Abbeys and priories in Northern Ireland
  Abbeys and priories in Northern Ireland is a link page for any abbey, priory, friary or other religious house in Northern Ireland.-Abbreviations and Key:-County Antrim:-County Armagh:-County Down:-County Fermanagh:-County Londonderry:...
  
  
• Gardens in Northern Ireland
  Gardens in Northern Ireland
  Gardens in Northern Ireland is a link page for any garden open to the public in Northern Ireland.List of gardens in Northern Ireland:*Belfast Botanic Gardens*Clandeboye Estate, Bangor, County Down*Drenagh, Limavady, County Londonderry...
  
  
• Giant's Causeway
  Giant's Causeway
  The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the northeast coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles northeast of the town of Bushmills...
  
  
• Historic houses in Northern Ireland
• Museums in Northern Ireland
• National parks of Northern Ireland
  National parks of Northern Ireland
  There are, at present, no national parks in Northern Ireland and moves to establish a national park in the Mourne Mountains have proved to be controversial. If established, it would stretch from Carlingford Lough to Newcastle and Slieve Croob, creating a tourism boom and up to 2,000 jobs...
  
  

Food and drink

The best known traditional dish in Northern Ireland is the Ulster fry. It is similar to the full Irish breakfast and full English breakfast, but with the unique addition of soda

Soda bread

Soda bread is a variety of quick bread traditionally made in a variety of cuisines in which sodium bicarbonate is used as a raising agent rather than the more common yeast. The ingredients of traditional soda bread are flour, bread soda, salt, and buttermilk...

 farl

Farl

A farl is any of various roughly triangular flat breads and cakes, traditionally made by cutting a round into four pieces....

s and potato bread

Potato bread

Potato bread is a form of bread in which potato replaces a portion of the regular wheat flour. It is cooked in a variety of methods, including by baking it on a hot griddle or pan, or in an oven. It may be leavened or unleavened, and may have a variety of other ingredients baked into it...

. Northern Ireland's best known chefs are Paul Rankin

Paul Rankin

Paul Rankin is a Scottish born, Northern Irish celebrity chef from Ballywalter, County Down, Northern Ireland. Born in Glasgow, Scotland his parents moved back to Ballywater, where he grew up. This was stated when he was the subject of an episode of a short programme named Proud Parents on Channel...

 and Michael Deane

Michael Deane

Michael Deane is a chef from Lisburn, Northern Ireland.Deane started his career at Claridge's in London. In 1993 he moved back to Northern Ireland and opened Deane's on the Square with his cousin, the entrepreneur, Haydn Deane in Helen's Bay, County Down...

. The 'Ulster Fry' is served in many places in County Donegal

County Donegal

County Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...

 as well.

Languages

English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 is the most spoken language in Northern Ireland. There are also two recognised regional language

Regional language

A regional language is a language spoken in an area of a nation state, whether it be a small area, a federal state or province, or some wider area....

s in Northern Ireland: the Irish language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 (see Irish language in Northern Ireland

Irish language in Northern Ireland

The Irish language is a minority language in Northern Ireland. The dialect spoken there is known as Ulster Irish....

) and the local variety of Scots

Scots language

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 variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

 known as Ulster Scots. Northern Ireland Sign Language

Northern Ireland Sign Language

Northern Ireland Sign language is a sign language used mainly by Deaf people in Northern Ireland.NISL is described as being related to Irish Sign Language at the syntactic level while the lexicon is based on British Sign Language and American Sign Language .A number of practitioners see Northern...

 (known as British Sign Language

British Sign Language

British Sign Language is the sign language used in the United Kingdom , and is the first or preferred language of some deaf people in the UK; there are 125,000 deaf adults in the UK who use BSL plus an estimated 20,000 children. The language makes use of space and involves movement of the hands,...

 to many) and Irish Sign Language

Irish Sign Language

Irish Sign Language is the sign language of Ireland, used primarily in the Republic of Ireland. It is also used in Northern Ireland, though British Sign Language is also used. Irish Sign Language is more closely related to French Sign Language than to British Sign Language, which was first used...

 have been recognised since 29 March 2004.

As of the 2001 Census

United Kingdom Census 2001

A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....

, Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 is the most widely spoken minority language

Minority language

A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities.-International politics:...

 in Northern Ireland, with Shelta, Arabic and Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 also spoken by a significant number of people. Since the census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

 however, an influx of people from recent EU

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 accession states

Enlargement of the European Union

The Enlargement of the European Union is the process of expanding the European Union through the accession of new member states. This process began with the Inner Six, who founded the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952...

 is likely to have significantly increased numbers of speakers of languages from these countries. Detailed figures on these changes are as yet unavailable.

Sport

Some team sports are played on an all-Ireland basis, while in others Northern Ireland fields its own team. See Sport in Ireland

Sport in Ireland

In Ireland many sports, such as boxing, hockey, rowing, cricket, rugby union, Gaelic football and hurling, are organised in an all-island basis, with a single team representing the whole of Ireland in international competitions...

• Belfast Giants
  Belfast Giants
  The Belfast Giants are an ice hockey team from Belfast, Northern Ireland that compete in the Elite Ice Hockey League. Home games are played at the 7,100-capacity Odyssey Arena in Belfast....
  
  
• 'Football special'
• Gaelic football
  Gaelic football
  Gaelic football , commonly referred to as "football" or "Gaelic", or "Gah" is a form of football played mainly in Ireland...
  
  
• Hurling
  Hurling
  Hurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic origin, administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, and played with sticks called hurleys and a ball called a sliotar. Hurling is the national game of Ireland. The game has prehistoric origins, has been played for at least 3,000 years, and...
  
  
• Gaelic handball
  Gaelic handball
  Gaelic handball is a sport similar to Basque pelota, racquetball, squash and American handball . It is one of the four Gaelic games organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association...
  
  
• Milk Cup
  Milk Cup
  The Milk Cup is an international youth football tournament held annually in Northern Ireland. The cup matches are mainly played in the North Coast area of Northern Ireland, with matches taking place in the towns of Portrush, Portstewart, Castlerock, Limavady, Coleraine, Ballymoney, Ballymena and...
  
   International youth association football competition held in Northern Ireland
• Northern Ireland national football team
  Northern Ireland national football team
  The Northern Ireland national football team represents Northern Ireland in international association football. Before 1921 all of Ireland was represented by a single side, the Ireland national football team, organised by the Irish Football Association...
  
  
• Royal Portrush Golf Club
  Royal Portrush Golf Club
  Royal Portrush Golf Club is a private golf club in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is the only golf club outside of the UK Mainland which has hosted The Open Championship, the oldest of golf's major championships. The club has two links courses, the Dunluce Links and the Valley Links.The...
  
  
• Ulster GAA
  Ulster GAA
  The Ulster Council is a Provincial council of the Gaelic Athletic Association sports of hurling, Gaelic football, camogie, and handball in the province of Ulster. The headquarters of the Ulster GAA is based in Armagh City....
  
  
• Ulster Rugby
  Ulster Rugby
  Ulster Rugby, usually referred to simply as Ulster, is an Irish professional rugby union team based in Belfast, representing the Irish province of Ulster, that competes in the RaboDirect Pro12 and also competes in the Heineken Cup...
  
  

Internationally well-known sports people:

• George Best
  George Best
  George Best was a professional footballer from Northern Ireland, who played for Manchester United and the Northern Ireland national team. He was a winger whose game combined pace, acceleration, balance, two-footedness, goalscoring and the ability to beat defenders...
  
   - footballer, born in Belfast
• Darren Clarke
  Darren Clarke
  Darren Christopher Clarke is a professional golfer from Northern Ireland who currently plays on the European Tour and has previously played on the PGA Tour. He has won 22 tournaments worldwide on a number of golf's main tours including the European Tour, the PGA Tour, the Sunshine Tour and the...
  
   - golfer, born Dungannon
• Joey Dunlop
  Joey Dunlop
  William Joseph "Joey" Dunlop, OBE , was a world champion motorcyclist from Ballymoney in Northern Ireland, best known for road racing. Referred to throughout the sport as "Joey", in 2005 he was voted the fifth greatest motorcycling icon ever by Motorcycle News...
  
  
• Dave Finlay
  Dave Finlay
  David John "Fit" Finlay Jr. is a Northern Irish professional wrestler and road agent. He is perhaps best known for his time in World Championship Wrestling and WWE as an active wrestler and later as a road agent...
  
  
• Alex Higgins
  Alex Higgins
  Alexander Gordon "Alex" Higgins , also known by his nickname of Hurricane Higgins, was a Northern Irish professional snooker player who was twice World Champion and twice runner-up. Higgins earned the nickname The Hurricane because of his speed of play...
  
  
• David Humphreys
• Eddie Irvine
  Eddie Irvine
  Edmund "Eddie" Irvine, Jr. is a former racing driver from Northern Ireland. He grew up in Conlig, County Down, and was influenced by his parents, who were also involved in motor racing...
  
  
• Dave McAuley
  Dave McAuley
  Dave McAuley, born 15 June 1961 in Larne, Northern Ireland is a former professional boxer. During his professional career he held the IBF world title in the Flyweight category. He was arguably the Irelands greatest ever Flyweight.-Boxing career:...
  
  
• Willie John McBride
  Willie John McBride
  William James McBride, MBE, better known as Willie John McBride is a former rugby union footballer who played as a lock for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions. He played 63 Tests for Ireland including eleven as captain, and toured with the Lions five times — a record that gave him 17...
  
  
• Tony McCoy
  Tony McCoy
  Anthony Peter McCoy OBE , commonly known as A. P. McCoy or Tony McCoy, is a Northern Irish horse racing jockey....
  
  
• Wayne McCullough
  Wayne McCullough
  Wayne William McCullough is a professional boxer. During his professional career, which spans back to 1993, he held the WBC title in the Bantamweight category...
  
  
• Mary Peters
  Mary Peters (athlete)
  Dame Mary Elizabeth Peters, DBE, DL is a former British athlete, competing mainly in the pentathlon and shot put.-Biography:Mary Peters was born in Halewood, Lancashire, but moved to Ballymena at age eleven...
  
  
• Ronan Rafferty
  Ronan Rafferty
  Ronan P. Rafferty is an Northern Irish professional golfer, who formerly played on the European Tour.Rafferty was born in Newry, Northern Ireland. He won the Boys Amateur Championship aged fifteen and played in the Walker Cup aged seventeen...
  
  
• Dennis Taylor
  Dennis Taylor
  Dennis Taylor is a retired snooker player, and current BBC snooker commentator. Winner of two ranking events, he is best known for winning the 1985 World Championship, beating World number one Steve Davis on the final black in one of the sport's most memorable finals...
  
  
• Andrew Trimble
  Andrew Trimble
  Andrew Trimble is an Irish rugby union footballer from Coleraine, County Londonderry in Northern Ireland.- Club career :He attended Coleraine Academical Institution, where he competed in the Ulster Schools Cup....
  
  
• Norman Whiteside
  Norman Whiteside
  Norman Whiteside is a former Northern Ireland international footballer who played in two World Cups.He appeared for Manchester United and Everton, before his career was ended by injury at the age of 26. He won the FA Cup twice during his time playing for Manchester United, in 1983 and 1985...
  
  
• Cormac McAnallen
  Cormac McAnallen
  Cormac McAnallen was an Irish Gaelic footballer who played for Tyrone. He won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship with the county in 2003, also winning the Ulster Senior Football Championship twice and two National League titles. At underage level he won an All-Ireland Minor and two...
  
  
• Rory McIlroy
  Rory McIlroy
  Rory McIlroy is a Northern Irish professional golfer from Holywood in County Down. He has represented Europe, Great Britain & Ireland, and Ireland as both an amateur and a professional. He had a successful amateur career, topping the World Amateur Golf Ranking for one week as a 17-year-old in 2007...
  
  

Literature

Despite its small geographical size, Northern Ireland prolifically produces internationally renowned writers and poets from a wide variety of disciplines. Irish language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 literature was the predominant literature in the pre-Plantation period. The Ulster Cycle

Ulster Cycle

The Ulster Cycle , formerly known as the Red Branch Cycle, one of the four great cycles of Irish mythology, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster, particularly counties Armagh, Down and...

 is pertinent to the history of literature in the territory of present-day Northern Ireland. Ulster Scots literature first followed models from Scotland, with the rhyming weavers, such as James Orr

James Orr (poet)

James Orr was a poet or rhyming weaver from Ulster also known as the Bard of Ballycarry, who wrote in English and Ulster Scots. He was the foremost of the Ulster Weaver Poets, and was writing contemporaneously with Robert Burns...

, developing an indigenous tradition of vernacular literature

Vernacular literature

Vernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular—the speech of the "common people".In the European tradition, this effectively means literature not written in Latin...

. Writers in the counties which now form Northern Ireland participated in the Gaelic Revival

Gaelic Revival

The Gaelic revival was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language and Irish Gaelic culture...

.

• John Brown
• Ciarán Carson
  Ciaran Carson
  Ciaran Gerard Carson is a Belfast, Northern Ireland-born poet and novelist.-Early years:Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast into an Irish-speaking family...
  
  
• Mairtín Crawford
  Mairtín Crawford
  Mairtín Crawford was a poet and journalist who was born and educated in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He co-founded and edited the Big Spoon literary arts magazine in the 1990s, was production and arts editor of magazine, was a creative writing tutor at the for eight years, and was appointed...
  
  
• Brian Friel
  Brian Friel
  Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...
  
  
• Seamus Heaney
  Seamus Heaney
  Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
  
  
• John Hewitt
• C. S. Lewis
  C. S. Lewis
  Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
  
  
• Bernard MacLaverty
  Bernard MacLaverty
  Bernard MacLaverty is a writer of fiction. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 14 September 1942, and lived there until 1975 when he moved to Scotland with his wife, Madeline, and four children...
  
  
• Louis MacNeice
  Louis MacNeice
  Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...
  
  
• Ian McDonald
  Ian McDonald (author)
  Ian McDonald is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies.- Biography :...
  
  
• Medbh McGuckian
  Medbh McGuckian
  Medbh McGuckian is a poet from Northern Ireland.-Biography:She was born the third of six children as Maeve McCaughan to Hugh and Margaret McCaughan in North Belfast. Her father was a school headmaster and her mother an influential art and music enthusiast...
  
  
• Gerard McKeown
  Gerard McKeown
  Gerard McKeown is a writer from Ballymena, Northern Ireland. A graduate of Cumbria Institute of the Arts, he is best known for his performance poetry, which draws as much from disciplines such as stand up comedy and bardic story telling as it does poetry.He has performed as a support act for other...
  
  
• Paul Muldoon
  Paul Muldoon
  Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published over thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He held the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1999 - 2004. At Princeton University he is both the Howard G. B. Clark ’21 Professor in the Humanities and...
  
  
• Flann O'Brien
  Flann O'Brien
  Brian O'Nolan was an Irish novelist, playwright and satirist regarded as a key figure in postmodern literature. Best known for novels such as At Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman and An Béal Bocht and many satirical columns in The Irish Times Brian O'Nolan (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966) was...
  
  
• Frank Ormsby
  Frank Ormsby
  Francis Arthur Ormsby is a Northern Irish poet.He was educated at St Michael's College, Enniskillen and Queen's University Belfast. He was editor of The Honest Ulsterman from 1969 to 1989, and has also edited the Poetry Ireland Review. Since 1976 he has been Head of English at the Royal Belfast...
  
  
• Tom Paulin
  Tom Paulin
  Thomas Neilson Paulin is a Northern Irish poet and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he is the GM Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.- Life and work :...
  
  
• Richard Rowley
  Richard Rowley
  Richard Rowley was the pseudonym of Richard Valentine Williams , born at 79 Dublin Road, Belfast, Ireland, who wrote poetry, plays and stories.-Early life:...
  
  
• Bob Shaw
  Bob Shaw
  Bob Shaw, born Robert Shaw, was a science fiction author and fan from Northern Ireland. He was noted for his originality and wit. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1979 and 1980...
  
  
• David Park
  David Park
  David Park was a painter and a pioneer of the Bay Area Figurative School of painting during the 1950s.-Biography:...
  
  

Visual arts

For a full list, see List of Northern Irish artists. Here are just a few examples:

• Bogside Artists
  Bogside Artists
  The Bogside Artists are a trio of mural painters from Derry, Northern Ireland, consisting of Tom Kelly, his brother William Kelly, and Kevin Hasson...
  
  
• Basil Blackshaw
  Basil Blackshaw
  -Life:Born in Glengormley, County Antrim, Northern Ireland and brought up in Boardmills, County Down, Blackshaw attended Methodist College Belfast and studied at Belfast College of Art...
  
  , born in Glengormley, Painter
• Max Clendinning, post-modernist architect and interior designer
• John T. Davis, Documentary filmmaker
• Willie Doherty
  Willie Doherty
  Willie Doherty is an artist, who has mainly worked in photography and video. He has twice been a Turner Prize nominee.-Life and work:...
  
  , Photographer & video artist twice nominated for the Turner Prize
• John Duncan, Photographer & editor of Source Magazine
• Garth Ennis
  Garth Ennis
  Garth Ennis is a Northern Irish comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series Preacher with artist Steve Dillon and his successful nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise...
  
  , born in Holywood Co. Down, is creator of popular Vertigo series Preacher
• Terry George
  Terry George
  Terry George is an Irish screenwriter and director. Born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland much of his film work involves the Troubles in Northern Ireland...
  
  , born in Co. Down, director of Hotel Rwanda
  Hotel Rwanda
  Hotel Rwanda is a 2004 American drama film directed by Terry George. It was adapted from a screenplay written by both George and Keir Pearson. Based on real life events which took place in Rwanda during the spring of 1994, the film stars Don Cheadle as hotelier Paul Rusesabagina, who attempts to...
  
  
• Dave McElfatrick, co-creator of popular comic franchise Cyanide & Happiness
• John Kindness
  John Kindness
  John Kindness is an Irish multi-media artist whose work often contrasts material, image and reference in an unusual and humorous way. He attended the Belfast College of Art and now lives and works in Dublin....
  
  , Painter and Sculptor
• Sir John Lavery
  John Lavery
  Sir John Lavery was an Irish painter best known for his portraits.Belfast-born John Lavery attended the Haldane Academy, in Glasgow, in the 1870s and the Académie Julian in Paris in the early 1880s. He returned to Glasgow and was associated with the Glasgow School...
  
  , born in Belfast, was a representative of the group known as the Irish Impressionists.
• Eilís O'Connell, Sculptor, born in Derry, County Londonderry.
• Peter Richards, Photographer & video artist.
• Neil Shawcross
  Neil Shawcross
  Neil Shawcross is an artist born in Kearsley, Lancashire, England, and resident in Northern Ireland since 1962. Primarily a portrait painter, his subjects have included novelist Francis Stuart , former Lord Mayor of Belfast David Cook , footballer Derek Dougan and fellow artists Colin Middleton...
  
  , painter
• Paul Seawright
  Paul Seawright
  Paul Seawright is an artist born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1965. He currently lives in Belfast and is Professor of Photography at the University of Ulster in Belfast.-Life and work:...
  
  , Photographer & Professor at the University of Ulster
• Victor Sloan
  Victor Sloan
  Victor Sloan MBE is an Irish photographer and artist.Victor Sloan studied at the Royal School, Dungannon, Co. Tyrone and Belfast and Leeds Colleges of Art, England. He lives and works in Portadown, County Armagh in Northern Ireland...
  
  , Photographer
• Hans Sloane
  Hans Sloane
  Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, PRS was an Ulster-Scot physician and collector, notable for bequeathing his collection to the British nation which became the foundation of the British Museum...
  
  , Born in Killyleagh, Co. Down, in 1660, his famous collection was opened to the public as the British Museum
  British Museum
  The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
  
   in 1759
• John Butler Yeats
  John Butler Yeats
  John Butler Yeats was an Irish artist and the father of William Butler Yeats, Lily Yeats, Lollie Yeats and Jack B. Yeats. He is probably best known for his portrait of the young William Butler Yeats which is one of a number of his portraits of Irishmen and women in the Yeats museum in the National...
  
  , Painter

Performing arts

• Kenneth Branagh
  Kenneth Branagh
  Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
  
  
• Brian Friel
  Brian Friel
  Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist, author and director of the Field Day Theatre Company. He is considered to be the greatest living English-language dramatist, hailed by the English-speaking world as an "Irish Chekhov" and "the universally accented voice of Ireland"...
  
  
• Ciarán Hinds
  Ciarán Hinds
  Ciarán Hinds is an Irish film, television and stage actor. He has built up a reputation as a versatile character actor appearing in such high profile films as Road to Perdition, The Phantom of the Opera, Munich, There Will Be Blood and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. His television roles include...
  
  
• Mickey Marley
  Mickey Marley
  Mickey Marley was a street entertainer from Belfast, Northern Ireland.Born in the Markets area of Belfast, but spending most of his life on the Grosvenor Road in the Falls area of West Belfast, Marley was a common sight in Belfast City Centre for over forty years.Drawn by his horse Joey, Marley...
  
  
• Siobhán McKenna
  Siobhán McKenna
  Siobhán McKenna was an Irish stage and screen actress.-Background:Born Siobhán Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith in Belfast, Northern Ireland into a Catholic and nationalist family, she grew up in Galway City and in County Monaghan, Ireland speaking fluent Irish...
  
  
• Liam Neeson
  Liam Neeson
  Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
  
  
• Sam Neill
  Sam Neill
  Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
  
  
• James Nesbitt
  James Nesbitt
  James Nesbitt is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher like his father, so he began a degree in French at the University of Ulster...
  
  
• Stephen Rea
  Stephen Rea
  Stephen Rea is an Irish film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in high profile films such as V for Vendetta, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire and Breakfast on Pluto...
  
  
• Ray Stevenson
  Ray Stevenson (actor)
  George Raymond "Ray" Stevenson is a Northern Irish-born English film and television actor. He is known for playing Titus Pullo in the BBC/HBO television series Rome , and in film as Dagonet in King Arthur and as Frank Castle/The Punisher in Punisher: War Zone and The Super Hero Squad Show...
  
  

Music

• Brian Kennedy
  Brian Kennedy (singer)
  Brian Edward Patrick Kennedy is an Irish singer-songwriter and author, known for his ballads, and has represented Ireland at Eurovision 2006. He is the younger brother of musician Bap Kennedy.-Personal life:...
  
  
• Derek Bell
  Derek Bell (musician)
  George Derek Fleetwood Bell, MBE was an Northern Irish harpist, pianist, oboist, musicologist, and composer, best known for his accompaniment work on various instruments with The Chieftains....
  
  
• Duke Special
  Duke Special
  Duke Special, real name Peter Wilson, is a songwriter and performer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A piano-based songwriter with a romantic style and a warm, distinctly accented voice, he has a distinctive look, with his long dreadlocks, eyeliner and outfits he describes as "hobo chic"...
  
  
• The Freshmen
  The Freshmen (Irish showband)
  The Freshmen were among the most popular Irish showbands of the 1960s and 1970s. They specialised in recreating the complex vocal harmonies of international acts such as The Beach Boys and The 5th Dimension...
  
  
• Gary Moore
  Gary Moore
  Robert William Gary Moore , better known simply as Gary Moore, was a Northern Irish musician from Belfast, best recognised as a blues rock guitarist and singer....
  
  
• James Galway
  James Galway
  - External links : IMGArtists.com 15 September 2008. AllAboutJazz.com 5 August 2008.*...
  
  
• General Fiasco
  General Fiasco
  General Fiasco are an indie rock group from Bellaghy, Northern Ireland. Since their formation in 2007, they have toured with Fighting With Wire, The Wombats, One Night Only, The Pigeon Detectives, The Enemy, Jet and Kids In Glass Houses...
  
  
• Tony McAuley
  Tony McAuley
  Tony McAuley was a Northern Irish broadcaster, producer and musician.-Early life and education:McAuley was born Anthony on 24 October 1939 to a chemist from Cookstown, County Tyrone...
  
  
• Neil Hannon
  Neil Hannon
  Neil Hannon is a Northern Irish singer and songwriter, best known as the creator and frontman of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy. The band's official website even goes so far as to say, "The Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon," and Hannon is quoted in an interview as saying, "The Divine Comedy...
  
  
• Ruby Murray
  Ruby Murray
  Ruby Murray was one of the most popular singers in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1950s. In 1955 alone, she secured seven Top 10 UK hit singles.-Child star:...
  
  
• Snow Patrol
  Snow Patrol
  Snow Patrol are an alternative rock band from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Formed at the University of Dundee in 1994 as an indie rock band, the band is now based in Glasgow...
  
  
• Stiff Little Fingers
  Stiff Little Fingers
  Stiff Little Fingers are a punk rock band from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They formed in 1977, at the height of the Troubles. They started out as a schoolboy band called Highway Star , doing rock covers, until they discovered punk. They split up after six years and four albums, although they...
  
  
• Two Door Cinema Club
  Two Door Cinema Club
  Two Door Cinema Club are an indie rock band from Bangor and Donaghadee, County Down, Northern Ireland. Formed in 2007, the band is composed of band members: Sam Halliday , Alex Trimble and Kevin Baird...
  
  
• The Undertones
  The Undertones
  The Undertones are a punk rock/new wave band formed in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1975.The original line-up of the Undertones released thirteen singles and four studio albums — The Undertones , Hypnotised , Positive Touch and The Sin of Pride — before disbanding in July 1983.Music guide Allmusic...
  
  
• Therapy?
  Therapy?
  Therapy? is an alternative metal band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist–vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing from Larne, Northern Ireland. The band initially recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar...
  
  
• Ulster Orchestra
  Ulster Orchestra
  The Ulster Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Belfast, the only full-time professional orchestra in Northern Ireland. The orchestra plays the majority of its concerts in Belfast's Ulster Hall and Waterfront Hall...
  
  
• Hamilton Harty
  Hamilton Harty
  Sir Hamilton Harty was an Irish and British composer, conductor, pianist and organist. In his capacity as a conductor, he was particularly noted as an interpreter of the music of Berlioz and he was much respected as a piano accompanist of exceptional prowess...
  
  
• Michael Alcorn
  Michael Alcorn
  Michael Alcorn is a composer and the current Director of the School of Music and Sonic Arts at Queen's University, Belfast. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1962....
  
  
• The Answer
  The Answer (band)
  The Answer are a Northern Irish hard rock and blues-rock band from Newcastle and Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland. They have achieved success with their debut album Rise selling in excess of 30,000 copies in the UK & Europe, 10,000 on day one in Japan and 100,000 worldwide.-Lineup:*Cormac...
  
  
• Van Morrison
  Van Morrison
  Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
  
   and Them
  Them (band)
  Them were a Northern Irish band formed in Belfast in April 1964, most prominently known for the garage rock standard "Gloria" and launching singer Van Morrison's musical career...
  
  
• David McWilliams
• Foy Vance
  Foy Vance
  Foy Vance is a musician from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. His first single "Gabriel and the Vagabond" was released on 18 December 2006 on Wurdamouth Records. The single's B-side was "Indiscriminate Act of Kindness"...
  
  
• In Case of Fire
  In Case of Fire
  In Case of Fire are a Christian alternative rock band from Portadown, Northern Ireland, formed in 2005. The original line up consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Steven Robinson, bassist Mark Williamson and drummer Colin Robinson...
  
  

Craft

August Craft Month is an annual coordinated programme of events that showcase the work of craft makers in Northern Ireland and from across the United Kingdom, Ireland and Europe.It is organised by Craft Northern Ireland

Craft Northern Ireland

Craft Northern Ireland is the regional development agency for craft in Northern Ireland. In 2000, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland took formal steps to establish "an organisation to help shape and define the craft sector in Northern Ireland"...

 

Songs

Among traditional songs are The Sash

The Sash

The Sash is a ballad from Ireland commemorating the victory of King William III in the Williamite war in Ireland in 1690–1691....

 and A Londonderry Air also known as Danny Boy

Danny Boy

-Background:The words to "Danny Boy" were written by English lawyer and lyricist Frederic Weatherly in 1910. Although the lyrics were originally written for a different tune, Weatherly modified them to fit the "Londonderry Air" in 1913, after his sister-in-law in the U.S. sent him a copy. Ernestine...

.

• The Town I Loved So Well
  The Town I Loved So Well
  "The Town I Loved So Well" is a song written by Phil Coulter about his childhood in Derry, Northern Ireland. The first three verses are about the simple lifestyle he grew up with in Derry, while the final two deal with the Troubles, and lament how his placid hometown had become a major military...
  
  

Symbolism and traditions

There is no longer an official Flag of Northern Ireland

Flag of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland has not had its own unique, government-sanctioned flag since the Northern Ireland parliament and government were prorogued in 1972, and abolished in 1973...

, as the 'Northern Ireland Flag' was abolished along with the Parliament of Northern Ireland

Parliament of Northern Ireland

The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended...

 in 1972. Unionists tend to use the Union Flag

Union Flag

The Union Flag, also known as the Union Jack, is the flag of the United Kingdom. It retains an official or semi-official status in some Commonwealth Realms; for example, it is known as the Royal Union Flag in Canada. It is also used as an official flag in some of the smaller British overseas...

 and sometimes the Ulster Banner

Ulster Banner

The Ulster Banner, more commonly known as the Ulster flag, Northern Ireland flag or the Red Hand of Ulster flag, was the flag of the Government of Northern Ireland between 1953 and 1972. Since that government was abolished in 1972, the flag has become a symbol of Ulster loyalism and is not...

, while nationalists

Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...

 usually use the Flag of Ireland

Flag of Ireland

The national flag of Ireland is a vertical tricolour of green , white, and orange. It is also known as the Irish tricolour. The flag proportion is 1:2...

, or sometimes the Flag of Ulster

Flag of Ulster

The Flag of Ulster is a historic banner used to represent Ulster, one of the four provinces of Ireland. It is still used today to represent the province at some sporting events and formed the basis of the Ulster Banner, the flag of the Government of Northern Ireland between 1953 and 1972...

. Both sides also occasionally use the flags of secular and religious organizations they belong to. Some groups, including the Irish Rugby Football Union

Irish Rugby Football Union

The Irish Rugby Football Union is the body managing rugby union in Ireland. The IRFU has its head office at 10/12 Lansdowne Road and home ground at Aviva Stadium, where Irish rugby union international matches are played...

 and the Church of Ireland

Church of Ireland

The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...

 use the Flag of St. Patrick as a symbol of Ireland which lacks the same nationalist or unionist connotations.

The flax

Flax

Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...

 flower, representing the linen

Linen

Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....

 industry, has been used as a neutral symbol - as for the Northern Ireland Assembly

Northern Ireland Assembly

The Northern Ireland Assembly is the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland. It has power to legislate in a wide range of areas that are not explicitly reserved to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and to appoint the Northern Ireland Executive...

.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by both nationalists and unionists, while "The Twelfth

The Twelfth

The Twelfth is a yearly Protestant celebration held on 12 July. It originated in Ireland during the 18th century. It celebrates the Glorious Revolution and victory of Protestant king William of Orange over Catholic king James II at the Battle of the Boyne...

" is celebrated only by unionists.

Celebrations to mark the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne

Battle of the Boyne

The Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish and Irish thronesthe Catholic King James and the Protestant King William across the River Boyne near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland...

 are held every Twelfth of July and draw huge crowds. The Apprentice Boys of Derry

Apprentice Boys of Derry

The Apprentice Boys of Derry is a Protestant fraternal society with a worldwide membership of over 80,000, founded in 1814. They are based in the city of Derry, Northern Ireland. However, there are Clubs and branches across Ireland, Great Britain and further afield...

 also organise commemorative events. The bowler hat

Bowler hat

The bowler hat, also known as a coke hat, derby , billycock or bombin, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for the English soldier and politician Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester...

 is a symbol of Orangeism.

See also

• Culture of Belfast
  Culture of Belfast
  The culture of Belfast, much like the city, is a microcosm of the culture of Northern Ireland. Hilary McGrady, Chief Executive of Imagine Belfast, claimed that "Belfast has begun a social, economic and cultural transformation that has the potential to reverberate across Europe." Belfast is evenly...
  
  
• Lyric Theatre (Belfast)
• Belfast Festival at Queens
• Belfast Film Festival
  Belfast Film Festival
  Founded in 1995 by author Laurence McKeown, in its early stages of development the West Belfast Film Festival was part of Féile an Phobail. In its third and fourth year, it was autonomous and under the stewardship of Michele Devlin and Laurence McKeown, the Film Festival ran as a citywide event...
  
  
• CineMagic (film festival)
  CineMagic (film festival)
  Cinemagic is an international children's film festival in Belfast, UK, and in Dublin, Ireland, founded in 1988 that bills itself as the World Screen Festival for young people. The organisation is a company Limited By Guarantee and a registered charity....
  
  
• Irish art
  Irish art
  The early history of Irish art is generally considered to begin with early carvings found at sites such as Newgrange and is traced through Bronze Age artefacts, particularly ornamental gold objects, and the religious carvings and illuminated manuscripts of the medieval period...
  
  
• Irish literature
  Irish literature
  For a comparatively small island, Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to world literature. Irish literature encompasses the Irish and English languages.-The beginning of writing in Irish:...
  
  
• Irish music
• Odyssey
  Odyssey (Belfast)
  The Odyssey Arena is a large sports and entertainment centre situated in Titanic Quarter, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was jointly funded by the Millennium Commission, the Laganside Corporation, the DCAL, the Sheridan Group and the Sports Council for Northern Ireland. The Arena opened in 2000 with...
  
  
• Queen's Film Theatre
  Queen's Film Theatre
  The Queen's Film Theatre or QFT is a small independent cinema at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland that was founded in 1968. The QFT focuses mainly on art house, indie and world cinema and plays an important role in the cultural life of Belfast, in particular through contributions to...
  
  
• Strand Cinema
  Strand Cinema
  The Strand Cinema is an independent four-screen cinema in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is one of the two remaining independent cinemas in Belfast, alongside the Queen's Film Theatre. It is located on the Holywood Road....
  
  
• Ulster Scots
• Waterfront Hall
  Waterfront Hall
  The Waterfront Hall is a multi-purpose facility, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, designed by local architects' firm Robinson McIlwaine. Practice partner Peter McGukin was the project architect....
  
  
• Tennents ViTal
  Tennents ViTal
  Tennent's ViTal is an annual music festival in Northern Ireland. It was first held near Botanic Gardens in 2002 then later moved to Ormeau Park in 2007, both of these venues were in Belfast...
  
  
• Audiences NI
  Audiences NI
  Audiences NI is an audience development agency established in August 2004 by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to grow and diversify audiences for the arts in Northern Ireland. Audiences NI is one of 15 such agencies in the United Kingdom and its initiatives include increasing deaf access to...
  
  

External links

• Culture Northern Ireland
• The Lyric Theatre
• The Lyric Theatre Fundraising Campaign
• National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland
• Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL)
• Arts Council of Northern Ireland
• Poetry Forum for Northern Ireland,
• 2007 Smithsonian Folklife Festival
• Audiences NI
• Scoil Cheoil na Botha- music festival in the border region of Scotstown, Co. Monaghan