Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland exists as a constitutional compromise that satisfied nobody fully: created in 1921 by partitioning Ireland to keep a Protestant-majority region within the United Kingdom, it spent decades oscillating between violence and uneasy peace. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement established power-sharing between unionist and nationalist communities, but the institutions have collapsed repeatedly—most recently from 2022 to 2024 over Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol. The economic data tells a surprisingly positive story: output grew 3.6% in Q4 2024, far exceeding the UK's 1.4%, and the economy now sits 10% above pre-pandemic levels. Unemployment at 2.4% is Britain's lowest. Yet these headline numbers mask structural fragility. Northern Ireland relies on implicit fiscal transfers from Westminster, public sector employment exceeds private sector alternatives, and productivity remains constrained by a small domestic market and physical separation from the rest of the UK. Brexit created an unprecedented situation: Northern Ireland effectively remains in the EU single market for goods while the rest of the UK does not, creating regulatory divergence that benefits some businesses (frictionless EU access) while angering unionists who see it as a constitutional threat. The Windsor Framework attempted to smooth these tensions without resolving them. Belfast's tech sector and the pharmaceutical industry represent genuine competitive advantages, but the underlying question persists: is Northern Ireland's economy sustainable independently, or does it depend on continued UK subsidy? By 2026, the answer may matter more as demographic shifts trend toward a Catholic plurality for the first time.