Category: Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland Lifts Stay-at-Home Order as CCP Virus Lockdown Eased

Northern Ireland’s regional government lifted the COVID-19 stay-at-home order on Monday, but people are still urged to “stay local” and hospitality venues remain closed. Under the Northern Ireland Executive’s decision issued earlier this month, all pupils returned to school on Monday for the first time since the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus lockdown began on…


Northern Irish Leaders Struggle to Quell Worst Violence in Years

BELFAST—Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government put aside factional differences on Thursday to call for calm after frustration among pro-British unionists over post-Brexit trade barriers helped trigger some of the worst violence in the region in years. Despite the appeals, clashes spread further into Irish nationalist areas on Thursday night where police responded to petrol bomb and…


UK PM Urges Calm as Belfast Protesters Hijack Bus, Attack Police

BELFAST—Crowds of youths in a pro-British area of Belfast set a hijacked bus on fire and attacked police with stones in the latest of a series of nightly outbreaks of violence that began last week. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “deeply concerned” by the violence, which has injured dozens of police officers…


Northern Irish Leaders Set Aside Bickering to Urge End to Violence

BELFAST—Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government put aside factional differences on Thursday to appeal for calm after more than a week of nightly violence partly fuelled by frustration among pro-British unionists over post-Brexit trade barriers. Hundreds of youths in the British province’s capital Belfast set a hijacked bus on fire and attacked police with stones on Wednesday…


Northern Ireland Sees 3rd Night of Unrest Amid Post-Brexit Tensions

LONDON—Police and politicians in Northern Ireland appealed for calm on Monday after a third night of violence that saw Protestant youths start fires and pelt officers with bricks and gasoline bombs. The flareups come amid rising tensions over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland and worsening relations between the parties in the Protestant-Catholic power-sharing Belfast…


Disorder in Northern Ireland for Second Night Amid Brexit Tensions

Cars were set alight and masked people pelted a police van with petrol bombs on Saturday on the second successive evening of disorder in pro-British parts of Northern Ireland amid rising post-Brexit tensions in the region. Many pro-British unionists fiercely oppose the new trade barriers introduced between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United…


Photographer Captures 2 Kingfishers Battling It Out Mid-Air in Ferocious Fight Over Territory

These kingfishers look like two very angry birds—the pair were caught on camera battling it out mid-air over breeding territory. Photographer Jonathon Rosborough, 25, from Ballymena, Northern Ireland, took the pictures along a river called Sixmile Water, in Antrim, Northern Ireland. The pictures show two brightly colored kingfishers wresting for domination over one another in…


EU’s Barnier: UK Must Accept What Brexit Means, Deal on Northern Ireland

BRUSSELS—The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator said Britain must accept the realities of Brexit and it was the UK’s exit from the EU that had caused tensions between London and Brussels over Northern Ireland, not the divorce protocol. Britain has been seeking changes to the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit deal after the European…


EU Top Official Regrets ‘Mistakes’ Over Vaccine Export Gaffe

BRUSSELS—The European Union’s top official expressed regret for creating a row with Britain last month when the bloc briefly considered applying an emergency restriction on exports of COVID-19 vaccines also to the UK’s Northern Ireland. Amid a dispute with Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca, the EU introduced tighter rules on exports of COVID-19 vaccines that could hit…


Bewildered and Angry, Northern Ireland Unionists Fret Over Place in UK

LARNE, Northern Ireland—As Northern Ireland’s unionists prepare to celebrate 100 years since the state’s creation cemented their place in the United Kingdom, post-Brexit trade barriers are triggering their deepest fears: being cut off from Britain and pushed towards a united Ireland. The British-run region remains deeply divided along sectarian lines, with Catholic nationalists aspiring to…