Abstract
How many people in Northern Ireland actually describe themselves as Northern Irish rather than Irish or British? Does this identity
choice vary across the two main communities? What kind of people hold a Northern Irish identity - in terms of age, and socio-economic
status? Is Northern Irish identity on the increase over time? In addition to addressing these questions we try to understand what the
'Northern Irish' identity actually means. Is it a genuinely different, cross-community identity. Or is it just another way of expressing the
dominant identities of British and Irish? We probe the meaning of Northern Irish by examining the political views and the political
behaviour of Northern Irish identifiers, their social attitudes and the relationship between inter-group contact and identity choice. In our
final section we tease out some possible policy implications of 'Northern Irish' identity. To begin with, however, we provide a brief
overview of the academic literature on the Northern Irish identity.
choice vary across the two main communities? What kind of people hold a Northern Irish identity - in terms of age, and socio-economic
status? Is Northern Irish identity on the increase over time? In addition to addressing these questions we try to understand what the
'Northern Irish' identity actually means. Is it a genuinely different, cross-community identity. Or is it just another way of expressing the
dominant identities of British and Irish? We probe the meaning of Northern Irish by examining the political views and the political
behaviour of Northern Irish identifiers, their social attitudes and the relationship between inter-group contact and identity choice. In our
final section we tease out some possible policy implications of 'Northern Irish' identity. To begin with, however, we provide a brief
overview of the academic literature on the Northern Irish identity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Northern Ireland Assembly Knowledge Exchange Seminar Series |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Publication status | Published - 21 May 2015 |