Flight Belfast Kiev

Kiev

About Kiev

Kiev, also spelled Kyiv (Ukrainian: ? (help·info), Kyyiv, IPA: ['k?ji?]; Russian:  (help·info), Kiyev; see also Cities' alternative names), is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. As of April 2007, official municipal estimates placed the population of Kiev at about 2.7 million inhabitants, although some much higher unofficial estimates are often published.

Kiev is an important industrial, scientific, educational and cultural centre of Eastern Europe. It is home to many high-tech industries, higher education institutions and world-famous historical landmarks. The city has an extensive infrastructure and highly developed system of public transport, including the Kiev Metro.

The name Kiev is said to derive from the name of Kyi, one of four legendary founders of the city (brothers Kyi, Shchek, Khoryv and sister Lybid'). During its history, Kiev, one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe, passed through several stages of great prominence and relative obscurity. The city is believed to have been founded in the 5th century as a trading post in the land of Early East Slavs. It gradually acquired eminence as the centre of the East Slavic civilization, becoming in the tenth to twelfth centuries a political and cultural capital of Rus', a medieval East Slavic state. Completely destroyed during the Mongol invasion in 1240, the city lost most of its influence for the centuries to come. It was a provincial capital of marginal importance in the outskirts of the territories controlled by its powerful neighbors: first the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, followed by Poland and Russia. The city prospered again during the Russian industrial revolution in the late 19th century. After the turbulent period following the Russian Revolution of 1917, from 1921 onwards Kiev was an important city of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and, from 1934, its capital. During World War II, the city again suffered significant damage, but quickly recovered in the post-war years remaining the third largest city of USSR. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian independence of 1991, Kiev remained the capital of Ukraine.

Environment

Geographically, Kiev belongs to the Polesia ecological zone (a part of the European mixed woods). However, the city's unique landscape distinguishes it from the surrounding region.

Kiev is located on both sides of the Dnieper River, which flows south through the city towards the Black Sea. The older right-bank (western) part of the city is represented by numerous woody hills, ravines and small rivers. It is a part of the larger Dnieper Upland adjoining the western bank of the Dnieper in its mid-flow. Kiev expanded to the Dnieper's lowland left bank (to the east) only in the twentieth century. Significant areas of the left-bank Dnieper valley were artificially sand-deposited, and are protected by dams.

The Dnieper River forms a branching system of tributaries, isles, and harbors within the city limits. The city is adjoined by the mouth of the Desna River and the Kiev Reservoir in the north, and the Kaniv Reservoir in the south. Both the Dnieper and Desna rivers are navigable at Kiev, although regulated by the reservoir shipping locks and limited by winter freeze-over.

Kiev has a continental humid climate. The warmest months are June, July, and August, with mean temperatures of 13.8 to 24.8 °C (56.9 to 76.7 °F). The coldest are December, January, and February, with mean temperatures of ?4.6 to -1.1 °C (23.7 to 30.0 °F). The highest ever temperature recorded in the city was 39.4 °C (103.0 °F) on 31 July 1936. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the city was -32.2 °C (-26.0 °F) on 7 & 9 February 1929. Snow cover usually lies from mid-November to the end of March, with the frost-free period lasting 180 days on average, but surpassing 200 days in recent years.

History

Kiev is one of the oldest and most important cities of Eastern Europe and has played a pivotal role in the development of the medieval East Slavic civilization as well as in the modern Ukrainian nation.

Human settlement at the site of the present day city may have occurred as early as the fifth or the sixth century AD. With the exact time of city foundation being hard to determine, May 1982 was chosen to celebrate the city's 1,500th anniversary.

During the eighth and ninth centuries, Kiev was an outpost of the Khazar empire. Starting in the late ninth century Kiev was ruled by the Varangian nobility and became the nucleus of the Rus' polity, whose Golden Age (eleventh to early twelfth centuries) has from the nineteenth century become referred to as Kievan Rus'. In 1240 the Mongol invasion of Rus led by Batu Khan completely destroyed Kiev, an event that had a profound effect on the future of the city and the East Slavic civilization. At the time of the Mongol destruction, Kiev was reputed as one of the largest cities in the world, with a population exceeding one hundred thousand.

In 1321, the greatly diminished city and surrounding area was conquered by Gediminas for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. From 1569 the city was controlled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as a capital of Kijów Voivodeship, transferred by then to the Polish Crown. In the 17th century, Kiev was transferred under rule of Russia. In the Russian Empire Kiev was a primary Christian centre, attracting pilgrims, and the cradle of many of the empire's most important religious figures, but until the 19th century the city's commercial importance remained marginal.

Kiev prospered again during the late nineteenth century industrial revolution in the Russian Empire, when it became the third most important city of the Empire and the major centre of commerce of its southwest. In the turbulent period following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Kiev became the capital of several short-lived Ukrainian states and was caught in the middle of several conflicts: World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the Polish-Soviet War. Kiev changed hands sixteen times from the end of 1918 to August 1920.

From 1921 the city was a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a founding republic of the Soviet Union. Kiev was greatly affected by all the major processes that took place in Soviet Ukraine during the interwar period: the 1920s Ukrainization as well as the migration of the rural Ukrainophone population made the recently Russophone city partly Ukrainian-speaking and propped up the development of the Ukrainian cultural life in the city; the Soviet Industrialization that started in end-1920s turned the city, a former centre of commerce and religion, into a major industrial, technological and scientific centre, the 1932-1933 Great Famine devastated the part of the migrant population not registered for the ration cards, and Stalin's 1930s Great Purge almost eliminated the city's intelligentsia

In 1934 Kiev became the capital of Soviet Ukraine. The city boomed again during the years of the Soviet industrialization as its population grew rapidly and many industrial giants were created, some of which exist to this day.

In World War II, the city again suffered significant damage, but quickly recovered in the post-war years, becoming once again the third most important city of the Soviet Union. The catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant occurred only 100 km north of the city. However, the prevailing northward winds blew the most substantial radioactive debris away from the city.

In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine was proclaimed in the city by the Ukrainian parliament on August 24, 1991. Kiev is the capital of independent Ukraine.

Government

The municipality of the city of Kiev has a special legal status within Ukraine compared to the other administrative subdivisions of the country. The most significant difference is that the city is subordinated directly to the national-level branches of the Government of Ukraine, skipping the regional level authorities of Kiev Oblast. Additionally, the Head of City Administration -- the leading executive position is held by a directly elected, rather than appointed, figure, who is also the Head of City Council -- the Mayor of Kiev, and municipal institutions have a higher level of self governance than elsewhere in Ukraine.

Administratively, the city is divided into "raions" ("districts"), which have their own locally elected governments with jurisdiction over a limited scope of affairs. Presently, there are 10 raions.

Ukraine

About Ukraine

Ukraine (English pronunciation /ju?'kre?n/; Ukrainian: ?, Ukrayina, /ukr?'jin?/) is a country in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the east, Belarus to the north, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev (Kyiv) is Ukraine's capital.

The nation's history began with that of the East Slavs. From at least the 9th century, the territory of Ukraine was a center of the medieval East Slavic civilization forming the state of Kievan Rus', which disintegrated in the 12th century. From the 14th century on, the territory of Ukraine was divided among a number of regional powers and by the 19th century the largest part of Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire with the rest under Austro-Hungarian control. After a chaotic period of incessant warfare and several attempts at independence (1917-1921) following the Russian Revolution and the Great War, Ukraine emerged in 1922 as one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's territory was enlarged westward shortly before and after the Second World War, and again in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the co-founding members of the United Nations. Ukraine became independent again after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This began a transition period to a market economy, in which Ukraine was stricken with eight straight years of economic decline. But since about the turn of the century, the economy has been experiencing a stable increase, with real GDP growth averaging about seven percent annually.

Ukraine is a unitary state composed of 24 oblasts (provinces), one autonomous republic (Crimea), and two cities with special status: Kiev, its capital, and Sevastopol, which houses the Russian Black Sea Fleet under a leasing agreement. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. At the end of 2004, the country underwent an extensive constitutional reform that has changed the balance of power among the parliament, the prime minister, and the cabinet, as well as their relationship with the president.

Etymology

The Ukrainian word Ukrayina is from Old East Slavic ukraina "borderland", from u "by, at" and the Slavic root kraj "edge; region". In the Ukrainian language krayina simply means "country." In English, the country is referred to without the definite article, conforming to the usual English grammar rules for names of countries. Before the country's independence in 1991, the country was often referred to as "The Ukraine." The term 'Ukraine' rather than 'The Ukraine' is now predominant in diplomacy and journalism.

History

Human settlement on the territory of Ukraine dates back to at least 4500 BC, when the Neolithic Cucuteni culture flourished in a wide area that covered parts of modern Ukraine including Trypillia and the entire Dnieper-Dniester region all the way to and including parts of the modern territories of Romania and Moldova. During the Iron Age, the land was inhabited by Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians.

Colonies of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Byzantine Empire, such as Tyras, Olbia, and Hermonassa, were founded starting from the 6th century BC on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea, and thrived well into the 6th century AD.

During the 10th and 11th centuries, much of modern-day Ukraine was populated by the Rus' people who formed a European polity, now called the Kievan Rus'. Rus' laid the foundation for the national identity of Ukrainians, as well as other East Slavic nations, through subsequent centuries. Kiev, the capital of modern Ukraine, became the most important city of the Rus'. The city was wrested from Khazars by Askold and Dir in about 860 AD. According to the Primary Chronicle, the Rus' elite initially consisted of Varangians from Scandinavia. The Varangians later became assimilated into the local Slavic population and became part of the Rus' first dynasty, the Rurik Dynasty.

Kievan Rus' was composed of several principalities ruled by the interrelated Rurikid Princes. The seat of Kiev, the most prestigious and influential of all principalities, became the subject of many rivalries among Rurikids as the most valuable prize in their quest for power. These were sometimes contested through intrigue, but more often through bloody conflicts. The Golden Age of Kievan Rus' began with the reign of Vladimir the Great (Volodymyr, 980-1015), who turned Rus' toward Byzantine Christianity. During the reign of his son, Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054), Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural development and military power. This was followed by the state's increasing fragmentation as the relative importance of regions rose again. After a final resurgence under the rule of Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125) and his son Mstislav (1125-1132), Kievan Rus' finally disintegrated into separate principalities following Mstislav's death. The 13th century Mongol invasion devastated Kievan Rus'. Kiev was totally destroyed in 1240.

On the Ukrainian territory, the state of Kievan Rus' was succeeded by the principalities of Galich (Halych)and Volodymyr-Volynskyi, which were merged into the state of Galicia-Volhynia.

In the mid-14th century, Galicia-Volhynia was subjugated by Casimir the Great of Poland, while the heartland of Rus', including Kiev, fell under the Gediminids of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Following the 1386 Union of Krevo, a dynastic union between Poland and Lithuania, most of Ukraine's territory was controlled by the local as well as increasingly Ruthenized Lithuanian nobles as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At this time, the term Ruthenia and Ruthenians as the Latinized versions of "Rus'", became widely applied to the land and its people, respectively.

By 1569 the Union of Lublin formed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and a significant part of Ukrainian territory was moved from largely Ruthenized Lithuanian rule to the Polish administration, as it was transferred to the Polish Crown. Under the cultural and political pressure of Polonization much of the Ruthenian upper class converted to Catholicism and became indistinguishable from the Polish nobility. Thus, the Ukrainian commoners, deprived of their native protectors among Ruthenian nobility, turned for protection to the Cossacks, who remained fiercely orthodox at all times and tended to turn to violence against those they perceived as enemies, particularly the Polish state and its representatives.

In the mid-17th century, a Cossack quasi state, the Zaporozhian Host, was established by the Dnieper Cossacks and the Ruthenian peasants fleeing Polish serfdom. Poland had little real control of this land in what is now central Ukraine, which became an autonomous military quasi state, at times allied with the Commonwealth in military campaigns and at times rebelling against the Polish rule. However, the enserfment of peasantry by the Polish nobility emphasized the Commonwealth's fierce exploitation of the workforce and, and perhaps most importantly, the suppression of the Orthodox Church pushed the allegiances of Cossacks away from Poland. Their aspiration was to have representation in Polish Sejm, recognition of Orthodox traditions and the gradual expansion of the Cossack Registry, all being vehemently denied by the Polish kings. The Cossacks eventually turned for protection to Orthodox Russia, a decision which would later lead towards the downfall of the Polish-Lithuanian state, and for Ukraine the preservation of its allegiance to the Orthodox Church and continued lack of national sovereignty.

In 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky led the largest of the Cossack uprisings against the Commonwealth and the Polish king John II Casimir. This uprising finally led to a partition of the modern territory of Ukraine between Poland and Russia. Left-bank Ukraine was eventually integrated into Russia as the Cossack Hetmanate, following the 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav and the ensuing Russo-Polish War. After the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century by Prussia, Habsburg Austria, and Russia, Western Ukrainian Galicia was taken over by Austria, while the rest of Ukraine was progressively incorporated into the Russian Empire.

Because of its geographic location, Ukraine played an important role in the frequent wars between East European monarchies and the Ottoman Empire. As a result of Russian successes in the wars against Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate of 1768-74 and 1787-1792, the territories along the Black Sea coast were annexed to the Russian Empire as well.

Despite the promises of Ukrainian autonomy given by the treaty of Pereyaslav, the Ukrainian elite and the Cossacks never received the freedoms and the autonomy they were expecting from Imperial Russia. However, within the Empire, Ukrainians rose to the highest offices of Russian state, and the Russian Orthodox Church.

At a later period, the tsarist regime carried the policy of Russification of Ukrainian lands, suppressing the use of the Ukrainian language in print, and in public.

During World War I Austro-Hungarian authorities established the Ukrainian Legion, along with the Polish Legion, to fight against the Russian Empire. These legions were the foundations of the successful Polish Army and the abortive Ukrainian Galician Army that fought against the Bolsheviks and Poles in the post World War I period (1919-1923).

Those suspected of the Russophile sentiments were treaty harshly. Up to 20,000 supporters of Russia from Galicia were detained and placed in an Austrian internment camp in Talerhof, Styria, and in a fortress at Terezín (now in the Czech Republic).

With the collapse of the Russian and Austrian empires following World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, a Ukrainian national movement for self-determination reemerged. During 1917-20, several separate Ukrainian states briefly emerged: the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Hetmanate and the Directorate successively established territories in the former Russian Empire, while the West Ukrainian People's Republic emerged briefly in the former Austro-Hungarian territory. In the midst of the civil war, a Ukrainian anarchist movement called the Black Army led by Nestor Makhno also developed. However with the Western Ukraine's defeat in the Polish-Ukrainian War followed by the failure of the further Polish invasion repelled by the Russian and Ukrainian pro-Soviet forces, Ukraine lost its initial independence. According to the Peace of Riga concluded between Soviet Russia, Soviet Ukraine and Poland western Ukraine was split-off and incorporated into Poland while the larger central and eastern parts formed a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in March 1919, that later became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in December 1922.

The Bolsheviks introduced universal health care, education and social-security benefits, as well as the right to work and housing. Women's rights were greatly increased through new laws aimed to wipe away centuries-old inequalities. The Ukrainian culture and language also enjoyed a revival, as Ukrainization became a local implementation of the Soviet-wide Korenization (literally indigenization) policy. These cultural policies were sharply reversed by the early-1930s.

Starting from the late 1920s, Ukraine was involved in the Soviet industrialization and the republic's industrial output quadrupled in the 1930s. However, the industrialization had a heavy cost for the peasantry, demographically a backbone of the Ukrainian nation. To satisfy the state's need for increased food supplies and to finance industrialization, Stalin instituted a program of collectivization of agriculture as the state combined the peasants' lands and animals into collective farms and enforcing the policies by the regular troops and secret police. Those who resisted were arrested and deported and the increased production quotas were placed on the peasantry. The collectivization had a devastating effect on agricultural productivity. As the members of the collective farms were not allowed to receive any grain until the unachievable quotas were met, starvation became widespread. In 1932-33, millions starved to death in a man-made famine known as Holodomor. Scholars are divided as to whether this famine fits the definition of genocide, but the Ukrainian parliament and more than a dozen other countries recognize it as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.

The times of industrialization and Holodomor also coincided with the Soviet assault on the national political and cultural elite often accused in "nationalist deviations". These policies of Ukrainization were reversed at the turn of the decade. Two waves of purges (1929-1934 and 1936-1938) resulted in the elimination of four-fifths of the Ukrainian cultural elite.

Following the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact in September 1939, German and Soviet troops divided the territory of Poland. Eastern Galicia and Volhynia with their Ukrainian population became reunited with the rest of Ukraine. This unifications of Ukraine achieved for the first time in its history was a decisive event in the history of the nation.

After France surrendered to Germany, Romania ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to Soviet demands. The Ukrainian SSR incorporated northern and southern districts of Bessarabia, the northern Bukovina, and the Soviet-occupied Hertsa region. But it ceded the western part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to the newly created Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. All these territorial gains were internationally recognized by the Paris peace treaties of 1947.

German armies invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, thereby initiating four straight years of incessant total war. The Axis allies initially advanced against desperate but unsuccessful efforts of the Red Army. In the encirclement battle of Kiev, the city was acclaimed by the Soviets as a "Hero City", for the fierce resistance by the Red Army and by the local population. More than 600,000 Soviet soldiers (or one quarter of the Western Front) were killed or taken captive. Although the wide majority of Ukrainians fought alongside the Red Army and Soviet resistance, some elements of the Ukrainian nationalist underground created the anti-Soviet nationalist formation Ukrainian Insurgent Army (1942) that later fought the Nazi forces as well while another nationalist movement collaborated with the Nazis. In total, about 4.5 million ethnic Ukrainians fought in the ranks of the Soviet Army. The pro-Soviet partisan guerrilla resistance in Ukraine at its peak in 1944 is estimated anywhere from 47,800 to 500,000, with about 48% of them being ethnic Ukrainians. Similar to the Soviet partisans, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's figures are very inaccurate, ranging anywhere from 25,000 to 200,000 Ukrainians.

Initially, the Germans were received as liberators by some Ukrainians, especially in western Ukraine, which had only joined the Soviet Union in 1939. However, brutal German rule in the occupied territories eventually turned many of its supporters against the occupation. Nazi administrators of conquered Soviet territories made little attempt to exploit the population of Ukrainian territories' dissatisfaction with Soviet political and economic policies. Instead, the Nazis preserved the collective-farm system, systematically carried out genocidal policies against Jews, deported others (mainly Ukrainians) to work in Germany, and began a systematic depopulation of Ukraine to prepare it for German colonization, which included a food blockade on Kiev. Under these circumstances, most people living in the occupied territory either passively or actively opposed the Nazis.

The total losses inflicted upon the Ukrainian population during the war are estimated between five and eight million, including over half a million Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen, sometimes with the help of local collaborators. Of the estimated 8.7 million Soviet troops who fell in battle against the Nazis, 1.4 million were ethnic Ukrainians . Ukraine is distinguished as one of the first nations to fight the Axis powers in Carpatho-Ukraine, and one that saw some of the greatest bloodshed during the war.

Belfast

About Belfast

Europa_hotelb.fast.jpg »Ž Pro Tanto Quid Retribuamus "What shall we give in return for so much"

Belfast (from the Irish: Béal Feirste meaning "Mouth of the (River) Farset") is the capital of Northern Ireland. It is the largest urban area in Northern Ireland and the province of Ulster and the second-largest city in Ireland. In the 2001 census, the population within the city limits (the Belfast Urban Area) was 276,459, while 579,554 people lived in the wider Belfast Metropolitan Area. This made it the fifteenth-largest city in the United Kingdom, but the eleventh-largest conurbation.

Belfast is situated on Ireland's eastern coast. The city is flanked to the northwest by a series of hills, including Cavehill, which is thought to be the inspiration for Jonathan Swift's novel, Gulliver's Travels. Belfast is located at the western end of Belfast Lough and at the mouth of the River Lagan making it an ideal location for the shipbuilding industry that once made it famous. When the Titanic was built in Belfast in 1912, Harland and Wolff had the largest shipyard in the world. Originally a town in County Antrim, the County borough of Belfast was created when it was granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1888.

Belfast saw the worst of The Troubles in Ireland, with nearly half of the total deaths in the conflict occurring in the city. However, since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, there has been significant urban regeneration in the city centre including Victoria Square, Queen's Island and Laganside as well as the Odyssey complex and the landmark Waterfront Hall. The city is served by two airports: The George Best Belfast City Airport adjacent to Belfast Lough and Belfast International Airport which is near Lough Neagh. Queen's University of Belfast is the main university in the city. The University of Ulster also maintains a campus in the city, which concentrates on fine art, design and architecture.

History

The name, Belfast, is the anglicised version of the Irish Béal Feirste which translates as "the sandy ford at the river mouth". This refers to the sand bar that formed where the River Farset met the River Lagan at Donegall Quay and flowed into Belfast Lough, which became the hub around which the city developed. The River Farset is also named after this silt deposit (from the Irish feirste meaning  »˜sand spit'). Originally a more significant river than it is today, the Farset formed a dock on High Street until the mid 19th century. Bank Street in the city centre referred to the river bank and Bridge Street was named for the site of an early Farset bridge. However, superseded by the River Lagan as the more important river in the city, the Farset now languishes in obscurity, under High Street.

The site of Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age. The Giant's Ring, a 5000-year-old henge, is located near the city, and the remains of Iron Age hill forts can still be seen in the surrounding hills. Belfast remained a small settlement of little importance during the Middle Ages. John de Courcy built a castle on what is now Castle Street in the city centre in the 12th century, but this was on a lesser scale and not as strategically important as Carrickfergus Castle to the north, which was built by de Courcy in 1177. The O'Neill clan had a presence in the area. In the 14th century the Clan Aedh Buidh, descendants of "Yellow" Hugh O'Neill built Grey Castle at Castlereagh, now in the east of the city. Conn O'Neill also owned land in the area, one remaining link being the Connswater River flowing thorough east Belfast.

Belfast became a substantial settlement in the 17th century after being established by Sir Arthur Chichester which was initially settled by the mainly Protestant English and Scottish migrants during the Plantation of Ulster.In 1791, the Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast, after Henry Joy McCracken and other prominent Presbyterians from the city invited Theobald Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell to a meeting, after having read Tone's "Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland". Belfast blossomed as a commercial and industrial centre in the 18th and 19th centuries and became Ireland's pre-eminent industrial city. Industries thrived, including linen, rope-making, tobacco, heavy engineering and shipbuilding, and at the end of the nineteenth century, Belfast briefly overtook Dublin as the largest and most industrialised city in Ireland. The Harland and Wolff shipyards became one of the largest shipbuilders in the world, employing up to 35,000 workers. Belfast was heavily bombed during World War II. In one raid, in 1941, German bombers killed around one thousand people and left tens of thousands homeless. Outside of London, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Blitz.

Belfast has been the capital of Northern Ireland since its creation in 1920 by the Government of Ireland Act. Since it began to emerge as a major city, it has been the scene of much sectarian conflict between its Roman Catholic and Protestant populations. These opposing groups in this conflict are now often termed republican and loyalist respectively, although are also referred to as 'nationalist' and 'unionist'. The most recent example of this is known as the Troubles - a civil conflict that raged from c.1969 to the late 1990s. Belfast saw the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, particularly in the 1970s, with rival paramilitary groups forming on both sides. Bombing, assassination and street violence formed a backdrop to life throughout The Troubles. The IRA detonated 22 bombs, all in a confined area in the city centre in 1972, on what is known as "Bloody Friday", killing nine people. Loyalists paramilitaries, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA) retaliated to the PIRA campaign by a series of killings. A particularly notorious group, based on the Shankill Road in the mid 1970s became known as the Shankill Butchers. In all, over 1,500 people were killed in political violence in the city from 1969 until 2001.

A legacy of the Troubles is that both republican and loyalist paramilitary groups in Belfast have become involved in organised crime and racketeering. On 20 December 2004, UK£26.4 million was stolen from the headquarters of the Northern Bank in Belfast City Centre, the largest cash robbery at the time in the United Kingdom. The police investigation linked the robbery to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Policing in Belfast is provided by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. They reported annual decreases in recorded crime in East, North, and South Belfast between 2002 and 2006. West Belfast showed an increase in recorded crime during the same period.

Governance

Belfast was granted borough status by James I in 1613 and official city status by Queen Victoria in 1888. Since 1971 it has been a local government district under local administration by Belfast City Council. Belfast is represented in both the British House of Commons and in the Northern Ireland Assembly. For elections to the European Parliament, Belfast is within the Northern Ireland constituency.

The city of Belfast has a mayoral form of municipal government. The City's officials are the Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor and High Sheriff who are elected from fifty-one councillors. The first Lord Mayor of Belfast was Daniel Dixon, who was elected in 1892. As of June 2007, the Lord Mayor of Belfast is Ulster Unionist Party politician, Jim Rodgers, who previously served in the same office in 2001. His duties, as mayor of Belfast, include presiding over meetings of the council, receiving distinguished visitors to the city, and representing and promoting the city on the national and international stage.

In 1997, Unionists lost overall control of Belfast City Council for the first time in its history, with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland gaining the balance of power between Nationalists and Unionists. This position was confirmed in the council elections of 2001 and 2005. Since then it has had three Nationalist mayors, two from the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and one from Sinn Féin. The first nationalist Lord Mayor of Belfast was Alban Maginness, a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, in 1996.

In the 2005 local government elections, the voters of Belfast elected fifty-one councillors to Belfast City Council from the following political parties: 15 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 14 Sinn Féin, 8 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 7 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 4 Alliance Party, 2 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), and 1 Independent.

As Northern Ireland's capital city, Belfast is host to the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, the site of home rule legislature in Northern Ireland. Belfast is divided into four Northern Ireland Assembly and UK parliamentary constituencies: North Belfast, West Belfast, South Belfast and East Belfast. All four extend beyond the city boundaries including into parts of Castlereagh, Lisburn and Newtownabbey districts. In the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections in 2007, Belfast elected 24 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), 6 from each constituency. The MLA breakdown consisted of 8 Sinn Féin, 6 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 4 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 3 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 2 Alliance Party, and 1 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP). In the 2005 UK general election, Belfast elected one MP from each constituency to the House of Commons at Westminster, London. This was comprised of 2 DUP, 1 SDLP, and 1 Sinn Féin.

The city of Belfast has the Latin motto "Pro tanto quid retribuamus". This is taken from Psalm 116 Verse 12 in the Latin Vulgate Bible and is literally "For (Pro) the much (tanto) it is that (quid) we repay (retribuamus)" The verse has been translated in different bibles differently - for example as "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?". It is also translated as "In return for so much, what shall we give back?"The Queens University Students' Union Rag Week publication PTQ derives its name from the first three words of the motto.

Ireland

About Ireland

Ireland (pronunciation /irl?nd/; Irish: Éire; Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain. Politically, the state Ireland (described as the Republic of Ireland in cases of ambiguity) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, covering the remainder in the north-east.

The population of the island is slightly over six million (2007), with 4.34 million in the Republic of Ireland (1.7 million in Greater Dublin) and an estimated 1.75 million in Northern Ireland (0.6 million in Greater Belfast). This is a significant increase from a modern historical low in the 1960s, but still much lower than the peak population of over 8 million in the early 19th century, prior to the Irish potato famine.

The name Ireland derives from the name Ériu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word land. Most other western European names for Ireland derive from the same source, such as French Irlande, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Irlanda, German Irland and Dutch Ierland.

Political geography

Traditionally, Ireland is subdivided into four provinces: Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster; and, in a system developed between the 13th and 18th centuries, 32 counties. Twenty-six of the counties are in the Republic of Ireland, and the remaining six (all in Ulster) are in Northern Ireland. Notably, based on boundaries established in the Early Modern period, Ulster and Northern Ireland are neither synonymous nor co-extensive, as three counties of Ulster (Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan) are part of the Republic. Nonetheless, 'Ulster' is often used colloquially as a synonym for Northern Ireland. Counties Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Tipperary have been broken up into smaller administrative areas, but are still considered by Ordnance Survey Ireland to be official counties. The counties in Northern Ireland are no longer used for local government, although their traditional boundaries are still used in sports and in some other cultural and ceremonial areas.

Despite the constitutional division of Ireland, the island does operate as a single entity in a number of areas. With a few notable exceptions, the island operates as a single unit in all major religious denominations and in many economic fields despite using two different currencies. There are also significant all-island dimensions to sports such as rugby, cricket and hockey.

For example most of the popular sports on the island operate on an all-Ireland basis, such as Gaelic games, rugby union and golf. The notable exception to this is Association football (where the previously all-island Irish Football Association following partition retained control of soccer only in Northern Ireland, with a separate Football Association of Ireland being formed for the remainder of the island) although an all-Ireland club cup competition, the Setanta Cup, was created in 2005. The creation of an all-island Association football league and a single international team (which is the case for rugby union) has been publicly touted by various prominent figures on the island in recent years, such as Irish government minister Dermot Ahern. More recently, FAI chief executive John Delaney believes there will be an all-Ireland league, but not before 2012, as a contract involving the Eircom League and the FAI runs to 2011. There is currently at least one player from Northern Ireland regularly appearing in the Republic of Ireland's squad, a practice that the latter's governing institution and the Irish government claim is permitted by the Belfast Agreement - although in reality there was apparently nothing to prevent the FAI from selecting players from Northern Ireland before the Agreement, since the Republic of Ireland's citizenship laws already extended north of the border. Nonetheless, Northern Ireland's governing body, the IFA, has raised the matter with the world governing body, FIFA, which appears to have ruled in favour of the Republic (although the matter remains unclear and therefore unresolved).

All major religious bodies are organised on an all-Ireland basis, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Church of Ireland/Anglican Church and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Some trade unions are also organised on an all-island basis and associated with the Irish Congress of Trades Unions (ICTU) in Dublin, while others in Northern Ireland are affiliated with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the United Kingdom, and some affiliate to both  »” although such unions may organise in both parts of the island as well as in Great Britain. The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) organises jointly in Northern Ireland with the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom (NUS), under the name NUS-USI.

The Belfast Agreement provides for all-Ireland governance in various guises. For example, a North-South Ministerial Council was established as a forum in which ministers from the Irish government and the Northern Ireland Assembly can discuss matters of mutual concern and formulate all-Ireland policies in twelve "areas of co-operation", such as agriculture, the environment and transport. Six of these policy areas have been provided with implementation bodies, an example of which is the Food Safety Promotion Board. Tourism marketing is also managed on an all-Ireland basis, by Tourism Ireland.

Two political parties, Sinn Féin and the Irish Green Party, contest elections and hold parliamentary seats in both jurisdictions. The largest party in the Republic of Ireland, Fianna Fáil, considered extending its organisation into Northern Ireland, perhaps via a merger with another political party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).

Some newspapers on the island are circulated in both jurisdictions, e.g., the Irish Times and report news on an all-Ireland basis. The Irish Times includes news concerning Northern Ireland in its "Home" section, despite the fact that it is based in the Republic. In general, though, most newspapers' circulation is largely concentrated in one jurisdiction or the other. Furthermore, most of the television stations based on the island broadcast across the whole island, such as RTÉ, TG4 and UTV (although signals may be relatively weaker in more remote areas).

An increasingly large amount of commercial activity operates on an all-Ireland basis, a development that is in part facilitated by the two jurisdictions' shared membership of the European Union. There have been calls for the creation of an "all-island economy" from members of the business community and policy-makers on both sides of the border, so as to benefit from economies of scale and boost competitiveness in both jurisdictions. This is a stated aim of the Irish government and nationalist political parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly. One commercial area in which the island already operates largely as a single entity is the electricity market. and there are plans for the creation of an all-island gas market.

17 March is celebrated throughout the island of Ireland as St. Patrick's Day.

Physical geography

A ring of coastal mountains surrounds low central plains. The highest peak is Carrauntoohil (Irish: Corrán Tuathail) in County Kerry, which is 1,038 m (3,406 ft). The River Shannon, at 386 km (240 miles) is the longest river in Ireland. The island's lush vegetation, a product of its mild climate and frequent but soft rainfall, earns it the sobriquet "Emerald Isle". The island's area is 84,412 km² (32,591 square miles).

Ireland's least arable land lies in the south-western and western counties. These areas are largely mountainous and rocky, with dramatic green vistas, hence the attributive name "the Emerald Isle".

Overall, Ireland has a mild, but changeable, Oceanic climate with few extremes. The warmest recorded air temperature was 33.3 °C (91.94 °F) at Kilkenny Castle, County Kilkenny on 26 June 1887, where as the lowest recorded temperature was ?19.1 °C (?2.38 °F) at Markree Castle, County Sligo on 16 January 1881.

Other statistics show that the greatest recorded annual rainfall was 3,964.9 mm (156.1 in) in the Ballaghbeena Gap in 1960. The driest year on record was 1887, with only 356.6 mm (14.0 in) of rain recorded at Glasnevin, while the longest period of absolute drought was in Limerick where there was no recorded rainfall over 38 days during April and May of 1938.

The climate is typically insular, and as a result of the moderating moist winds which ordinarily prevail from the South-Western Atlantic, it is temperate, avoiding the extremes in temperature of many other areas in the world at similar latitudes.

Precipitation falls throughout the year, but is light overall, particularly in the east. The west, however, tends to be wetter on average and prone to the full force of Atlantic storms, more especially in the late autumn and winter months, which occasionally bring destructive winds and high rainfall totals to these areas, as well as snow and hail. The regions of North Galway and East Mayo have the highest incidents of recorded lightning annually (5 to 10 days per year). Munster in the south records the least snow with Ulster in the north more prone to snow. Some areas along the south and southwest coasts have not had any lying snow since February 1991.

Inland areas are warmer in summer, and colder in winter - there are usually around 40 days of below freezing temperatures (0 °C/32 °F) at inland weather stations, but only 10 days at coastal stations. Ireland is sometimes affected by heat waves, most recently 1995, 2003, 2006.

Geologically the island consists of a number of provinces - in the far west around Galway and Donegal is a medium to high grade metamorphic and igneous complex of Caledonide (Scottish Highland) affinity. Across southeast Ulster and extending southwest to Longford and south to Navan is a province of Ordovician and Silurian rocks with more affinities with the Southern Uplands province of Scotland. Further south, there is an area along the Wexford coast of granite intrusives into more Ordovician and Silurian rocks with a more Welsh affinity.

In the southwest, around Bantry Bay and the mountains of Macgillicuddy's Reeks, is an area of substantially deformed but only lightly metamorphosed Devonian-aged rocks.

This partial ring of "hard rock" geology is covered by a blanket of Carboniferous limestone over the centre of the country, giving rise to the comparatively fertile and famously "lush" landscape of the country. The west coast district of The Burren around Lisdoonvarna has well developed karst features. Elsewhere, significant stratiform lead-zinc mineralisation is found in the limestones (around Silvermines and Tynagh).

Hydrocarbon exploration is continuing. The first major find was the Kinsale Head gas field off Cork/Cobh by Marathon Oil in the mid-1970s. More recently, in 1999, Enterprise Oil announced the discovery of the Corrib Gas Field. This has increased activity off the west coast in parallel with the "West of Shetland" step-out development from the North Sea hydrocarbon province. Exploration continues, with a frontier well planned north of Donegal for August 2006 and continuing drilling of prospects in the Irish Sea and St Georges Channel.

Wildlife

Ireland has fewer animal and plant species than either Britain or mainland Europe because it became an island shortly after the end of the last glacial period, about 10,000 years ago. Many different habitat types are found in Ireland, including farmland, open woodland, temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, conifer plantations, peat bogs, and various coastal habitats.

Only 26 land mammal species are native to Ireland, because it was isolated from Europe by rising sea levels after the Ice Age. Some species, such as the red fox, hedgehog, and badger are very common, whereas others, like the Irish hare, red deer and pine marten are less so. Aquatic wild-life, such as species of turtle, shark, whale, and dolphin, are common off the coast. About 400 species of birds have been recorded in Ireland. Many of these are migratory, including the Barn Swallow. Most of Ireland's bird species come from Iceland, Greenland, Africa among other territories. There are no snakes in Ireland and only one reptile (the common lizard) is native to the country. Extinct species include the great Irish elk, the wolf, the great auk, and others. Some previously extinct birds, such as the Golden Eagle, have recently been reintroduced after decades of extirpation.

Agriculture drives current land use patterns in Ireland, limiting natural habitat preserves, particularly for larger wild mammals with greater territorial needs. With no top predator in Ireland, populations of animals that cannot be controlled by smaller predators (such as the fox) are controlled by annual culling, i.e. semi-wild populations of deer.

Until mediæval times Ireland was heavily forested with oak, pine, beech and birch. Forests now cover about 9% (4,450 km² or one million acres) of the land. Because of its mild climate, many species, including sub-tropical species such as palm trees, are grown in Ireland. Much of the land is now covered with pasture, and there are many species of wild-flower. Gorse (Ulex europaeus), a wild furze, is commonly found growing in the uplands, and ferns are plentiful in the more moist regions, especially in the western parts of Ireland. It is home to hundreds of plant species, some of them unique to the island. The country has been "invaded" by some grasses, such as Spartina anglica.

The algal and seaweed flora is that of the cold-temperate. The total number of species is:- Rhodophyta: 264; Heterokontophyta: 152; Chloropyta: 114; Cyanophyta: 31 giving a total of 574. Rarer species include: Itonoa marginifera (J.Ag.) Masuda & Guiry); Schmitzia hiscockiana Maggs and Guiry; Gelidiella calcicola Maggs & Guiry; Gelidium maggsiae Rico & Guiry and Halymenia latifolia P.Crouan & H.Crouan ex Kützing. The country has been invaded by some algae, some of which are now well established: Asparagopsis armara Harvey - which originated in Australia and was first recorded by M. De Valera in 1939; Colpomenia peregrina Sauvageau - now locally abundant and first recorded in the 1930s; Sargassum muticum (Yendo) Fensholt - now well established in a number of localities on the south, west, and north-east coasts, ; Codium fragile ssp. fragile (formerly reported as ssp. tomentosum) - now well established. Codium fragile ssp. atlanticum has recently been established to be native, although for many years it was regarded as an alien species.