Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is the smallest component of the United Kingdom, where 1,7 million people live. It occupies the northeast of the island of Ireland, only one-sixth of its territory. Belfast is its capital city, a modern industrial town and a large sea-port.

For seven centuries Ireland was a colony of Britain. In 1949 it was officially proclaimed an independent state. But Northern Ireland was retained by Great Britain as its smallest component.

There are low hills and peaks of rocks in the northwest. The rivers are short, but deep. Irish poets call Ireland “the Emerald Isle”.

In Ireland the national musical instrument is the harp.

2. TRIUMPH OF INDUSTRIALISM

• Britain the Pioneer

• The English Character

• The Mixture of Races and Cultures

• The English Mind and Heart

• Religion in Britain

Britain the Pioneer

The middle of the 18th century marked the beginning of a period of rapid change which gradually transformed rural Britain into an industrial society. This economic development, known as the Industrial Revolution, started in England first because the English, of all Europeans, were best equipped for it. They possessed overseas markets and an expanding commerce, fluid capital (a London merchant was the first millionaire), considerable experience in banking, internal free trade, political stability, and mineral resources near sea-ports. Thus, Britain is the birthplace of modern industrialism.

The English Character

Compared with Latin peoples the English are ethnically young. They are good observers of Nature and great lovers of plants and animals. The English are fond of sport.

Other constants in the national character seem to spring from the land itself, its nature, climate and position on the north-western edge of the Continent. The insularity of the English, long isolated from Europe, is perhaps their most invaluable traits. They often distrust foreigners, their food, their habits and their morals. Today the man in the street simply believes that “a world without England would have no adequate standard of rightness”. The average Englishman has a real passion for liberty and law.

The Mixture of Races and Cultures

The English have been concisely defined as “a stream of Germans with a few ingredients of native Celt, Roman and Norman French. For the population is predominantly Anglo-Saxon. Of the blond, blue-eyed German the Englishman has the solid qualities: industry, domestic tastes, fearlessness, tenacity, and sometimes the ruthlessness.

The British have produced great poets and writers. And Shakespeare, the most universal of English poets, was born in the very heart of England, at the cross-roads where races and cultures mixed.

The English Mind and Heart

When an Englishman says: “We are not particularly clever”. It means: “We have no use for brilliant discussions leading nowhere. We use common sense and get results.” The English distrust idle theorizing. They act from instinct, and not from logic. Life, they believe, is far more complex than logic admits.

It has been said that the English have an understanding heart rather than an understanding head. England has produced more poets than philosophers. It is in poetry that the English race has unlocked its heart. Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Keats, Shelley, and Eliot, all the major and minor poets are the glory of England. The country gave birth to Turner and Constable, the fine water-colourists of the early 19th century. The access of all museums is free of charge in Britain.

The cultural programmes of the B.B.C. are probably the best in the world.