Morrissey is English, FYI. I think you’re thinking of Van Morrison, who doesn’t actually do anything especially tied to NI.
I wasn’t necessarily trying to explain why Northern Ireland specifically “should” be more relevant to people in the US than Nigeria, I was more trying to make the point that the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and even Jamaica are going to be more influential on American pop culture than Nigeria because they have the same language as the US. It was in response to what another poster said, that other than the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, he wasn’t very aware of British pop culture. I would have to say that at least in my experience, most Americans, of all ethnic backgrounds, are more likely to enjoy and be somewhat familiar with the culture of those other English-speaking countries than any other countries in the world, simply because there is a shared language and I think language is absolutely one of the most important parts of human existence, and hence a shared language one of the strongest cultural bonds.
I think Northern Ireland’s history is just too short, and too heavily defined by British and Irish Protestant/Irish Catholic conflict. I don’t know much about Scotland, but I did read several historical fiction books by a couple of Scottish authors, so I think I know historically accurate stuff. (The authors avoided violating anything we knew, but there were lots of knowledge gaps that could be filled.)
If someone mentioned Northern Ireland to me, I would think of:
Catholics vs Protestants (violent history, marches, Sinn Fein, Ulster Unionist/Orange, etc)
British colonizing Ireland
They voted for the party propping up Theresa May (I’ve heard British sources refer to that party as “troglodytes”, without any mention of the undoubtedly large numbers of Northern Irish who didn’t vote for Arlene Foster or Sinn Fein).
A Tom Clancy novel (where the IRA’s own members effectively “became” British, for instance liking British sports, without noticing). I couldn’t tell you how accurate that is, but Jack Ryan has Irish blood…
I think much of Game of Thrones was filmed in Northern Ireland, but I could be wrong on that point.
That’s… not a lot of things.
So what exactly do you mean by ‘underrepresented’ then? The word means that you think they’re represented less than one would expect, but people have pointed out that NI is a tiny little area smaller than two states that Europeans have even less awareness of. I really don’t get where the ‘underrepresented’ part comes from, they seem about as represented as I’d expect them to be.
Most Americans can’t name their own Vice President. Or put the states on a map. It isn’t anything personal. Since I don’t follow bands or sports, I have little idea who some of these people are. I do, however, know who Brian Friel was.
There is an endless amount of information in the world. No one knows but the smallest sliver of it, and the only things you’ll know are the things that are important to you or catch your interest.
He grew up in England, but his parents were from Dublin – which isn’t in NI, but the Republic of Ireland. (The capital, actually)
Multiple reasons.
- Northern Ireland is tiny. Its population is tiny. There are more people in New York’s Manhattan borough right now, than there are in Northern Ireland. There’s some sixteen times more “Irish-Americans” in the US than there are people in Northern Ireland.
- Historically, the UK strongly discouraged any popular media from identifying as being “Northern Irish”, unless the portrayal was in a negative light. The UK government was very put off by the “troubles” there in 1970-2000, and even now the subject matter is quite sensitive.
- Even when portrayed correctly, most non-UK english speakers cannot even differentiate between Irish and Scottish accent, indeed most simply cannot understand what either group is saying at all. This is not to be confused with the mild Irish accent a typical irish-american has. The native dialect is much, much stranger.
Nah, it’s perfectly normal.
Um, cite?
You’re right. It’s also partly produced/edited there. It’s pretty much NI’s major claim to fame as of this moment.
This post brought to you by someone actually living in Northern Ireland, I haven’t had a chance to read this entire thread yet but I will (that is not a threat) 
I would just like to say that the violence here didn’t entirely stop with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, its at a much lower scale than before but politically motivated terrorists are still active, mostly directed at the local security forces, police and prison officers with several being killed or injured. The British Army only has a small and low-key presence here now.
However stuff like this is still a regular occurrence: Outrage after three dissident bomb alerts at homes of PSNI officers' parents | BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
Is there still violence against Catholics by Protestants?
Also, are the Belfast neighborhoods like Shankill, Sandy Row, etc, still strongly sectarian?
Nigeria’s official language is English.
A majority of Nigerians speak English - it is the most commonly spoken language in the country.
In sheer numbers, there are more English speakers in Nigeria than in the UK, Australia, and Jamaica combined.
You may want to re-examine this point. It isn’t a very good one.
All I know of NI is from the news of 40 or so years ago. There was fighting, IRA bombings, and something about Catholics vs Protestants. The IRA left trash can bombs in London a few years ago, but that’s yet another nationalist group that we’ve seen our share of, and their identities erode to sameness because they commit violence out of hate for something. I’m sure that’s not how the OP wants his country to be remembered, but that’s more than I know about other European countries like Lithuania.
Is NI part of England? Are Scotland and Wales part of England? Depending on who you ask, you get different answers. We don’t identify with the risk to national pride so much, but can be equally as polarizing concerning the Civil War. We’re not familiar with the subtleties, and don’t understand the centuries of grudges because we’re too young as a country.
Maybe the US will show more interest in NI when one of their people records a hit song or stars in a movie. We only respond to what’s readily available. So, it’s no intentional snubbing on our part.
It’s not actually my country; I don’t have a drop of either English or Irish blood in me, unless it was negligible enough to show up in the “broadly Northern European” category on my DNA report. My ancestry is Greek, Italian, Baltic, and Ashkenazi Jewish.
Uh, who?
It’s more than vague familiarity with a subset of Americans, more like semi-fascination (based on coverage in the supermarket tabloids), which I guess comes from vague longings for royalty which we don’t have, unless you count the Clintons, Bushes and Kennedys, of which blurgh.
I often go months at a time without thinking about Northern Ireland. At rare intervals it might occur to me that it’s a good thing they’re not frequently shooting or blowing each other up any more.
It might help if Northern Ireland was known for some kind of really good food, but one really can’t expect that of anywhere in the U.K. 
*I thought of Winnipeg just now, but that’s only because they’re in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
If this is supposed to be sarcasm, it failed. If you really don’t know who Sir Ian McKellen is, I don’t know what to say.
(Nothing personal.)
It does still go on yes, in fact there are more ‘peace walls’ (to keep both sides apart) in Belfast now than there were at the height of The Troubles.
In fact a fairly recent survey showed that the post-Good Friday Agreement generation has more sectarian attitudes than those who grew up with the violence, hopefully that is just a reflection of youthful ignorance and they’ll grow out of it, but it doesn’t bode well.
Well Liam Neeson is pretty famous, although not a popular sport in America Formula 1 has had a few top-level drivers from Northern Ireland, including Eddie Irvine (I’m currently reading his autobiographical book about his time at Ferrari which is what brought him to mind).
And well knock yourself out List of people from Northern Ireland - Wikipedia
To be fair I haven’t heard of quite a few people on that list either and I’m from here.
We claim him as well: A giant leap for an 'Ulsterman'... tributes to Neil Armstrong, the astronaut who was first to walk on the moon | BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
And that’s a really odd way of cropping that picture…or maybe its just my monitor…
Wait wait wait Bear Grylls is from here? Now that I didn’t know!
Just to be clear: Neil Armstrong was born and raised in Ohio, apparently of Northern Irish descent – the article states that his grandfather may have been a teacher there.
It would seem to me, having recently watched The Fall, that Americans would love police procedurals set in Northern Ireland. Not only would we be awash in those accents that we just can’t seem to get enough of, but we wouldn’t have to do without the level of gunplay that we kind of demand from our police procedurals (like we would if an identical show were set in, say, London). It seems like a criminally untapped market!