Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland: the historic six counties plus the two former county boroughs. Click on any blue name for the article in question.

County
Down

County
Fermanagh

County Derry /
Londonderry

County
Armagh

County
Antrim

County
Tyrone

Belfast

Derry /
Londonderry

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries making up the United Kingdom. It came into being with the partition of Ireland in 1961, comprising six of the nine counties of the historic province of Ulster. For the next 50 years it had its own devolved government and parliament, but these were abolished in 1973. From 1973 to 1998 Northern Ireland was ruled directly from London, but since 1998 it has had its own power-sharing executive and assembly.

Local government

Northern Ireland currently comprses 26 districts for local government purposes, but the historic six counties, the basis of local government until 1973, are still recognised for various purposes:

• Antrim (including Belfast)
• Armagh
• Down
• Fermanagh
• Londonderry / Derry
• Tyrone.

Under the Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 2008, the 26 districts are to be reduced to 11.

LGBT history

Northern Ireland was left out of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 and sex between men remained illegal until the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982 which set an age of consent of 21, the same as in the rest of the UK at that time. The change was a result of the judgement in the European Court of Human Rights case of Dudgeon v United Kingdom (1981) in which the ECtHR held that a prohibition on homosexual acts was a breach of Article 8 of the Convention.

The main LGBT campaigning organisation in Northern Ireland is the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association (NIGRA), founded 1975.

The age of consent for gay male sexual conduct was lowered to 18 under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 so as to be in line with England and Wales). The age of consent was lowered again to 17 for gay male sexual conduct to be in line with heterosexual and lesbian sexual conduct, by the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, Section 1.

In 2008 the age of consent for all individuals was lowered to 16 under the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008 so it is now in line with the rest of the UK.

In October 2012, a motion calling for equal marriage was rejected by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Gay and Lesbian Youth Northern Ireland have a list of LGBT groups on their website.