You Think You Know Northern Ireland? Round 1 Multiple Choice Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Northern Ireland consists of six of the nine counties of the ancient Irish province of Ulster. Which three counties of Ulster do NOT form part of Northern Ireland?

Answer: Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.

Longford, Louth and Westmeath are counties of the Republic of Ireland and are in the province of Leinster. Derry/Londonderry, Antrim and Down are in Northern Ireland. Kerry, Limerick and Clare are counties of the Republic of Ireland and are in the province of Munster.

2. Belfast and Derry/Londonderry are the two largest cites in Northern Ireland; there are only three other cities in the province. Which of these is NOT a city?

Answer: Enniskillen

Armagh is a medium-sized town that was granted city status in 1994, it is also the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland. Lisburn and Newry were granted city status in 2002 as part of Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee celebrations.

3. Ireland has been called the land of Saints and Scholars. Which of these Northern Ireland towns has only one cathedral?

Answer: Newry

Armagh has one Protestant and one Catholic cathedral, both called St. Patrick's. Belfast has St. Anne's (Protestant) and St.Peter's (Catholic). Derry/Londonderry also has two - St. Eugene's (Catholic) and St Columb's (Protestant). Newry has the Cathedral of Saints Patrick and Colman (Catholic).

4. Which of these Northern Ireland towns lost its university campus in 2005?

Answer: Armagh

Both Belfast and Derry/Londonderry have campuses of the University of Ulster and Belfast also has Queen's University. Coleraine is the site of another campus of the University of Ulster. Armagh briefly had an outreach centre of Queen's University opened in the 1996s which closed in 2005.

5. People from Northern Ireland can be quite inventive so which of the following was NOT invented/developed by someone from Northern Ireland?

Answer: Steam turbine

Co. Down man James Martin was a co-founder of the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company. He developed an explosive charge to eject a pilot in flight creating the first ejector seat in 1945.
Prof. Pantridge, born in County Down, was a Cardiologist at the Royal Victoria Hospital he developed the portable defibrillator in the early 1960s, for which he has become as 'the Father of Emergency Medicine'.
Born in Co. Down, Hans Sloane was a physician who spent time in Jamaica where the local brew was cocoa beans mixed with water that Sloane described as "nauseous". He mixed the cocoa with milk and sugar to make it more palatable, inventing milk chocolate.
The steam turbine was invented by Sir Charles Parsons, in 1884, born in London into an Anglo-Irish family whose ancestral home was Birr Castle, County Offaly, in the Republic of Ireland.

6. Which of the following TV series/films did NOT film in Northern Ireland?

Answer: "Titanic: Blood and Steel" (2012).

Despite being about the most famous ship built in the Belfast ship yards, "Titanic: Blood and Steel" was filmed in Serbia and Dublin.

7. Northern Ireland has many areas of outstanding beauty (AONB) but only one was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986. Which of the following was it?

Answer: The Giants Causeway

The other three are areas of outstanding beauty (AONB) as designated by the Department of the Environment for NI. The Giants Causeway is also part of the Causeway Coast (AONB) but the Causeway itself was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1986.

It is an area containing about 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns which geologists say are the result of the cooling of lava from an ancient volcanic eruption.

8. Never wishing to let the facts spoil a good story, the locals have a different version of how the Giants Causeway was built. This involved the local giant building a Causeway, (now you know where the name came from), to Scotland - but what was his name?

Answer: Finn Mac Cool

Finn MacCool and the Scottish giant Bendonna were enemies so to get at Bendonna, Finn built the causeway from Ulster to Scotland. However on seeing the size of Bendonna he had second thoughts and ran back home to his wife. When Bendonna came looking for him Finn's wife hid him in the baby's cradle; when Bendonna saw the size of the baby he too he had second thoughts and decided not to hang around to meet the baby's father. So Bendonna ran back home to Scotland tearing up the causeway as he went.

9. At the centre of Northern Ireland is the largest, by area, freshwater lake in the British Isles. What is its name?

Answer: Lough Neagh

Lough Neagh supplies 40% of Northern Ireland's water, has an area of 150 square miles (about 390 km2), and has shores on five of Northern Ireland's six counties.

10. Eight of Northern Ireland's rivers flow into the Lough Neagh but only one flows out to reach the sea; which one is it?

Answer: The Lower Bann

The Six Mile Water, River Main, The Moyola,Glenavy River, Crumlin River, Blackwater and the Ballinderry River all flow into Lough Neagh.
The Upper Bann flows also flows into Lough Neagh and the Lower Bann flows out. Together the Upper and Lower Bann form the longest river in Northern Ireland, famous for its eel and salmon the Lower Bann flows into the Atlantic.

Source: Author CuddlyNutter

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

You Think You Know Northern Ireland? Round 1 Quiz

Test your knowledge of Northern Ireland.

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