Northern Ireland - how do you perceive it?

I think even if you're reasonably familiar with the history and expecting segregation, the sheer quantity of flags in some areas could be surprising. Especially if you visit in the run up to the 12th, when they've all been refreshed.

And the variety of them, too - I suspect some visitors expect it will just be Union Jack vs Tricolour.

@OkPedro is Irish, I think she means that NI and England aren't different countries, both being the UK.

NI is a different country unless of course you count England as 'southern Scotland' in which case go ahead and assume we are the same country here. Same island sadly 6 of our counties were taken off us.

Thank you for proving my point!

Northern Ireland is a separate country to ROI, unless we suddenly have a united Ireland that I'm not aware of. There are three Ulster counties that are part of the Republic, but NI, the country, is not a province of the Republic of Ireland.

Your friends have issues. Absolutely no need for that. County Down is beautiful. Me and my ex - him with an NI reg and me with an ROI one met up there a few years back for a weekend away and none of that was needed.

I think she meant different from each other. Sterling/mph/NHS/A Levels/Brexit Vs Euros/kph/HSE/Leaving Cert/EU. That sort of thing.

We visited NI for the first time, with ROI friends recently. They said they had only felt comfortable enough to visit for the first time around 5 years ago.
I was honestly amazed by the stunning coast, Belfast was busy and welcoming with some lovely old buildings and riverside. The Titanic exhibition was excellent.
The weather was so good we could easily see Scotland from the Antrim coast which blew my mind!
I hadn’t expected the flags and the kerbs though. They seemed to be everywhere including the small rural inland villages.

We will definitely return.

Anotger NI friend warned me not to use my Irish language name when visiting a particular town in NI...this was less than 10 years ago. She was half joking (I think) but only half...

We once hired a car in Dublin and drove up to see friends in County Down. We were going out for a meal in Dundrum, and our hosts were really worried about us going there in a car with Irish plates, and one of them checked underneath it before we got back into it! This was also within the last 10 years.

Never been and know nothing at all about the country. Really want to go to GoT Experience near Belfast, though!

Love NI, love Belfast. Definitely stil a divide and my ex lived through the troubles himself and he is west belfast but has friends from all 4 corners of it and just keep religion out of things when they talk. Brilliant city to go out in and for the most part very friendly.

I went there on holiday about 20 years ago. I'm English and my boyfriend was from Ballymena. Everyone I told was like 😱 especially because there was a lot on the news at the time about trouble at a primary school and riots, Holy Cross? but I absolutely loved it.

My memories of NI are sunshine, stunning beaches and coastline, pooh bear ice cream, ulster frys, friendly people and a lot of flags!
I'd love to go back one day.

Edited to add Veda! I really wish we had that over here!

Well they're not exactly wrong. Northern Ireland isn't a separate country. Region or province is more accurate

Hopefully not outing.

I have Catholic parents, one from NI, one from England, they could never settle in NI for this reason.

I spent lots of time there as a child pre-GFA, and since. I have lots of good memories of the people and places. But my extended family still live culturally-segregated lives. It's just the way it is.

I grew up feeling scared and confused and some very bad stuff happened to family members. There is inter-generational trauma but it feels like a forgotten conflict and I have no-one in my life to talk to about it.

That said I still love to visit and feel a strong but tragic pull! I'm glad the population is generally becoming more diverse due to migration, this can only be a good thing.

*whom your country planted there...

I don't believe you've seen nothing about the issue of NI in Brexit on the news in recent years etc.

But anyway ....the idea that a "history" neatly ended in 2000 and a deeply divided society that had a virtual civil war for decades just stopped being divided or displaying their divisions is. .... Ludicrous.

I'm English and married to a northern Irish man. I think Northern Ireland is brilliant. We are both Catholic but respect other people's religions. I've been every year since I was about 20. I love the accent and the wicked sense of humour. I love the scenery especially around the north west. The beaches are beautiful. DH has lots of stories about what it was like late 80s and I love hearing MIL talk about the place. I feel very lucky to have met someone from there. He's taught me a lot about the history of Northern Ireland. I did history GCSE here in England and they didn't teach us about the conflict very well. I've had to learn a lot over the years. It's been quite an education.

I think in England/ Wales out education system is very ignorant of the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland and I don't that is a good thing

Yes, the ignorance is appalling.

You did have the ability to read/watch things yourself, outside of basic education, though.

Maybe then, the fact that Unionists :- whom your country planted their for their own use and convenience hundreds of years ago - are utterly desperate to retain the union with Great Britain and as part of that desperate to display their identity & allegiance as British. ...wouldn't have come as such an inexplicable shock.

Not on the news here it isn't!

Yes. And it is hugely diverse in every way. But with the exception possibly of maybe BRA, most of the school in West and North and East are still very much along religious lines.

As someone who didn't grow up in NI it is a culture shock to drive through a village and see 100s of Union Jacks as a greeting of said villages religious/ cultural allegiances.

I have said since we've been that I think in England/ Wales out education system is very ignorant of the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland and I don't that is a good thing for anyone but it may partly explain why I hadn't expected there to still be segregation.

The visiting American musicians were vocal about feeling freaked out but the feeling on the ground was that Americans tend to overreact.

I'm sorry but I found that very blackly funny, I don't know if was intended to be.

Yep, Northern Irish kids are still mostly divided from nursery to secondary school by religion.

Some are divided by residential area too.

As I said I've met young people in Derry/Londonderry who had never met a protestant before. There are pretty much no protestants living on the city side of Derry, aside from one small unionist enclave (with their own primary school).

I grew up on the north coast near the Giant's Causeway. As a middle-class family with no interest in politics, we experienced very little of the Troubles and what we did experience was all we knew. An armed soldier stopping our car at a check point in the dark and asking about our journey was perfectly normal. Mum showing the contents of her handbag to a man before entering big shopping centres was also normal.

We got a very nice lamp shade that we couldn't otherwise have afforded because it was bomb damaged. Bomb damaged goods were regarded as bargains.

At a youth festival, we knew that no one could get in or out because armed men in balaclavas had closed the roads but no one thought twice about it because (a) they were never going to use those guns and (b) we had no plans to leave the festival. The visiting American musicians were vocal about feeling freaked out but the feeling on the ground was that Americans tend to overreact.

My 18 year old brother came home one evening slightly taken aback around the 12th. Some men in balaclavas had climbed on top of the car. We were mystified rather than alarmed. A visiting friend who later published a short story about his visit noted that my father seemed 'mildly interested'.

The roads are no longer closed around the 12th - my children don't know anything about the Troubles beyond the painted kerbs and flags.

Visited as a student back in 1983. Friends at Queens who were a mix of Protestant and Catholic. Could not have been made more welcome.