Northern Irish celebrities

Colin Morgan (born 1 January 1986) is a Northern Irish actor. He is best known for playing the title character in the BBC fantasy series Merlin.

James Dornan (born 1 May 1982) is an actor, model, and musician from Northern Ireland.

Liam John Neeson OBE (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has been nominated for several awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actor, a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama. He is one of the highest grossing actors of all time.

Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison OBE (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and record producer. His professional career began as a teenager in the late 1950s, playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Van Morrison rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B and rock band, Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic "Gloria". His solo career began in 1967, under the pop-hit orientated guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl". After Berns's death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968). Though this album gradually garnered high praise, it was initially a poor seller.

Christine Louise Bleakley (born 2 February 1979) is a Northern Irish broadcaster, best known for her television work with the BBC and ITV.

Paul Anthony Martin Loughran (born 7 July 1969 in Belfast) is a Northern Irish actor. He was educated at Methodist College Belfast. He is best known for portraying Butch Dingle in ITV Soap Opera Emmerdale in which his character died in a bus crash with friend Pete Collins. After that he appeared in many other Soaps such as Heartbeat. During the 1980s when the real voice of Gerry Adams, the spokesman for Sinn Féin, was forbidden to be broadcast in Britain, Loughran's voice was dubbed into recordings of him that were broadcast on British airwaves. On 24 August 2016, it was announced that Loughran had been cast as Darryl Perkins, the father of Craig Tinker (Colson Smith), in Coronation Street.

Roma Downey (born 6 May 1960) is an actress, producer, and author from Derry, Northern Ireland. She produced the mini-series, The Bible, for the History Channel and also starred in it, as Mary, mother of Jesus. For nine seasons she played Monica, the tender-hearted angel and employee of Tess (played by Della Reese), on the CBS television series Touched by an Angel, for which she earned multiple Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award Best Actress nominations. She has performed on stage with the Abbey Theatre and has appeared both on and off Broadway. She played the leading role of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the miniseries for NBC, A Woman Named Jackie.

Nadine Elizabeth Louise Coyle (born 15 June 1985) is an Irish singer, songwriter, actress and model. In 2002, Coyle was selected as a member of the girl group Girls Aloud, with whom she has been successful in achieving a string of 20 consecutive UK top ten singles (including four number ones), two UK number one albums, five consecutive platinum selling studio albums and received nominations for five BRIT Awards, winning Best Single in 2009 for "The Promise".

Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (born 10 December 1960) is a Northern Irish actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London; in 2015 he succeeded Richard Attenborough as its president. He has both directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989), for which he was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director, Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Love's Labour's Lost (2000), and As You Like It (2006).

Rory McIlroy MBE (born 4 May 1989) is a professional golfer from Northern Ireland who is a member of both the European and PGA Tours. He is a former world number one in the Official World Golf Ranking, having spent over 100 weeks in that position during his career. He is a four-time major champion, winning the 2011 U.S Open, 2012 PGA Championship, 2014 Open Championship, and 2014 PGA Championship. Along with Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, he is one of three players to win four majors by the age of 25.