Literature of Northern Ireland includes literature written in Northern Ireland, and in that part of Ireland prior to 1922, as well as literature written by writers born in Northern Ireland who emigrated. It includes literature in English, Irish and Ulster Scots.

The impact of Irish nationalism that led to the partition of the island of Ireland in 1921 means that literature of the Republic of Ireland is not considered to be British – although the identity of literature from Northern Ireland, as part of the literature of the United Kingdom, may fall within the overlapping identities of Irish and British literature where "the naming of the territory has always been, in literary, geographical or historical contexts, a politically charged activity". Writing from Northern Ireland has been described as existing in a "double post-colonial condition" being viewed as not British enough, not Irish enough, and (for writings in Scots) not Scottish enough to be included in consideration within the various national canons.

This part of the United Kingdom, called Northern Ireland, was created in 1922, following the partition of the island of Ireland. The majority of the population of Northern Ireland wanted to remain within the United Kingdom (see unionism and loyalism). Most of these were the Protestant descendants of settlers from Great Britain.

The identity of literature of Northern Ireland is as contested as the identity of Northern Ireland itself, but Northern Ireland writers have contributed to Irish, British and other literatures as well as reflecting the changing character of Northern Ireland society. As Tom Paulin put it, it should be possible "to found a national literature on this scutching vernacular".

Irish language literature was the predominant literature in the pre-Plantation period. The Ulster Cycle is pertinent to the history of literature in the territory of present-day Northern Ireland. Ulster Scots literature first followed models from Scotland, with the rhyming weavers, such as James Orr, developing an indigenous tradition of vernacular literature. Writers in the counties which now form Northern Ireland participated in the Gaelic Revival.

Though the books of Forrest Reid (1875–1947) are not well known today, he has been labelled 'the first Ulster novelist of European stature', and comparisons have been drawn between his own coming of age novel of Protestant Belfast, Following Darkness (1912), and James Joyce's seminal novel of growing up in Catholic Dublin, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). Reid's fiction, which often uses submerged narratives to explore male beauty and love, can be placed within the historical context of the emergence of a more explicit expression of homosexuality in English literature in the 20th century.

"The Blackbird of Belfast Lough", a fragment of syllabic verse probably dating from the 9th century, has inspired reinterpretations and translations in modern times. The blackbird serves as symbol for the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's University, Belfast.

The Annals of Ulster (Irish: Annála Uladh) cover years from AD 431 to AD 1540 and were compiled in the territory of what is now Northern Ireland: entries up to AD 1489 were compiled in the late 15th century by the scribe Ruaidhrí Ó Luinín, under his patron Cathal Óg Mac Maghnusa on the island of Belle Isle on Lough Erne.