Northern Ireland Trivia
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54 free Northern Ireland trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Northern Ireland trivia quiz covers the six counties from geology to golf. The easy questions are the ones any visitor should manage: the capital, the shipyard that built the Titanic, the basalt columns on the Antrim coast, the largest lake in the British Isles and the year the country was created. From there it moves into the deeper story, from the Plantation of Ulster and the Siege of Derry to partition, the unionist decades and the Troubles. The harder end is for history buffs and pub-quiz specialists: the Long Committee's six-county plan, Churchill's secret 1940 offer of Irish unity, the 1973 border poll, Bloody Sunday, the Peace People's Nobel Prize, the exact date of the Good Friday Agreement, the first nationalist First Minister, the walls that were never breached, Bushmills' misleading label date, the height of Titanic Belfast and the golfers who won three majors in fourteen months. Language, flags, anthems and murals get their own questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Northern Ireland, its cities and its history before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Ireland, United Kingdom and Belfast quizzes next.
30 of 54 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital city of Northern Ireland?
Belfast
Belfast stands on the River Lagan and is the second-largest city on the island of Ireland, after Dublin.
Q 02How many historic counties make up Northern Ireland?
Six
Six counties form Northern Ireland; the other three counties of the old province of Ulster went to the south at partition.
Q 03Which law created Northern Ireland in 1921?
Government of Ireland Act
The Government of Ireland Act, passed in 1920, set up one parliament for Northern Ireland and another for Southern Ireland.
Q 04What was Northern Ireland's population at the 2021 census?
1.9 million
1.9 million people were counted on census day, 21 March 2021, up from about 1.8 million in 2011.
Q 05The Giant's Causeway consists of roughly how many interlocking basalt columns?
40,000
About 40,000 columns, most of them hexagonal, formed when lava cooled and cracked some 50 to 60 million years ago.
Q 06In legend, an Irish giant built the Giant's Causeway so he could reach a rival giant in which country?
Scotland
Scotland: legend says the giant built it across the North Channel to fight the Scottish giant Benandonner, and matching basalt columns rise at Fingal's Cave on Staffa.
Q 07Which lake, the largest in the British Isles, sits at the centre of Northern Ireland?
Lough Neagh
Lough Neagh's bed is privately owned by the Earl of Shaftesbury, who said in 2023 that he was open to selling it.
Q 08What is the highest mountain in Northern Ireland?
Slieve Donard
Slieve Donard rises 850 metres, and the hand-built Mourne Wall, which encloses the Silent Valley Reservoir's catchment, runs up to a small stone tower on its summit.
Q 09Which mountain range in Northern Ireland has extensive gold deposits?
The Sperrins
They are an extension of the Caledonian mountain belt.
Q 10What is Northern Ireland's only native reptile?
The viviparous lizard
The viviparous lizard, Ireland's only native land reptile, is unusual among reptiles: it incubates its eggs inside its body and gives birth to live young.
Q 11Which warm ocean current helps give Northern Ireland milder winters than many places at the same latitude?
The Gulf Stream
Heat carried by the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift keeps Ireland milder in winter than many places at the same latitude, such as Newfoundland.
Q 12The Harland & Wolff shipyard is famous for building which trio of White Star liners?
Olympic, Titanic and Britannic
Olympic, Titanic and Britannic: Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage, and Britannic, serving as a hospital ship, sank after hitting a German mine in 1916.
Q 13What are the two giant yellow Krupp cranes at the Harland & Wolff shipyard nicknamed?
Q 21The 1795 Battle of the Diamond led to the founding of which Protestant fraternity?
The Orange Order
The Orange Order was founded straight after the battle, when the victorious Peep o' Day Boys met at James Sloan's in Loughgall, County Armagh.
Q 22Which law, taking effect in 1801 after the 1798 rebellion, abolished the Parliament of Ireland?
The Acts of Union
The Acts of Union merged the Kingdom of Ireland with Great Britain, so Irish MPs sat instead in an enlarged Parliament at Westminster.
Q 23Why did most unionists want some Ulster counties kept out of Northern Ireland?
To secure a larger Protestant majority
Samson and Goliath
Samson and Goliath tower over the shipyard, and Samson, the younger crane from 1974, is actually taller than Goliath, at 106 metres against 96.
Q 14The 2012 Titanic Quarter visitor centre is exactly as tall as which feature of the ship?
Its hull
Its hull: the museum stands 38 metres (126 feet) high, the same height as the ship's hull, and its angular facade is mostly clad in 3,000 silver aluminium shards.
Q 15When Belfast gained city status in 1888, it was the world's biggest centre for manufacturing what?
Linen
Linen made Belfast the centre of world linen production, and Queen Victoria granted it city status in 1888.
Q 16Which famous fantasy author was born in Ulster in 1898?
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis, an atheist from age 15, returned to Christianity in 1931 after a late-night walk along Oxford's Addison's Walk with his friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson.
Q 17Why is Derry nicknamed the Maiden City?
Its walls were never breached
Its walls were never breached, even when King James II's army besieged the city for 105 days in 1689 and failed to storm them.
Q 18Which holy man from Donegal is traditionally regarded as the founder of Derry?
Colmcille
Colmcille, better known as St Columba, later sailed from Ireland with twelve companions and founded the famous monastery on the Scottish island of Iona.
Q 19Which 1607 event opened the way for the Plantation of Ulster?
The Flight of the Earls
The Flight of the Earls carried about 100 Gaelic nobles, relatives and followers from Rathmullan in County Donegal to the Continent.
Q 20Which US president was born to Scots-Irish Presbyterian parents who had emigrated from near Carrickfergus in County Antrim?
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson's parents left Ulster for the Carolinas in 1765, two years before he was born, and the Andrew Jackson Centre near Carrickfergus now tells their story.
To secure a larger Protestant majority, unionists gave up Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan, whose nationalist majorities would have left them a much narrower lead.
Q 24Which body did Irish nationalists hope would shrink Northern Ireland, only for it to propose minor changes in 1925?
The Irish Boundary Commission
The Irish Boundary Commission recommended only small transfers in both directions, so the three governments kept the existing border and suppressed its report.
Q 25Over 500 people died in the 1920-22 violence that accompanied partition; which community made up most of the refugees?
Catholics
Catholics, the new state's minority, made up most of the refugees, as more than 10,000 people were driven from their homes.
Q 26Which political grouping governed Northern Ireland without interruption for its first fifty years?
The Ulster Unionists
The Ulster Unionists governed from 1921 until 1972, when Britain suspended the Northern Ireland Parliament and imposed direct rule.
Q 27Which British PM secretly offered in June 1940 to encourage Irish unity if Ireland joined the Allies?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's government sent envoy Malcolm MacDonald to Dublin with the offer, but de Valera turned it down, and it stayed secret until 1970.
Q 28Which two premiers held secret talks in January 1965, easing North-South tensions in Ireland?
Terence O'Neill and Sean Lemass
Terence O'Neill hosted Sean Lemass for the talks, and the following month O'Neill made the return visit to Dublin.
Q 29Which republican hunger striker was elected to the UK Parliament weeks before he died in prison in 1981?
Bobby Sands
Bobby Sands won Fermanagh and South Tyrone while on hunger strike, died after 66 days without food, and more than 100,000 people lined his funeral route.
Q 30Which foreign example did NICRA, Northern Ireland's 1960s protest group, model itself on?
The US civil rights movement
The US civil rights movement's protest songs, such as We Shall Overcome, were sung at NICRA marches, and NICRA adopted that song's title as a slogan.