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Even though you don't have any geo-targeted sections, there are other indications on your site that let them know you are targeting Ireland and Google might be optimizing for that. With that said, how are you checking these rankings? Do these keywords send you large amounts of traffic? Check Search Console. Are you having an issue getting UK traffic (North Ireland)? Are you worried about UK traffic due to North Ireland? I am worried that what you are seeing is due to your own search history and settings and/or Google seeing the same search a few times and testing out different results. There might also be different competition in the Northern Ireland market. There is a ton that could explain this, but alas, as with most things SEO, it's hard to pinpoint.

Using canonical IS NOT the solution, because if you use canonical the FAQ pages of the canonicalized websites are going to be deindexed. So, just do it if you really don't care about the traffic those answers can generate for your sites (as you can imagine, this is an ironic suggestion...). Just use the hreflang, because Google in the last months has become quite smart in understanding that it means that you consider those pages relevant enough for the geo-targeted audiences to not filter them out even if they are substantially identical between country versions. Said that, try to differentiate the FAQ pages (better localization of the language. i.e.: English UK is slightly different than American English), or even offering a local number for phone inquiries and localized email address for question via email. In general, it is not a good idea using the crossdomain canonical in International SEO, and it should be used just in exceptional cases.

Hi there! I was working on seo for escort website for six months, and recently there were so many changes in the SEO of escort. I was going pretty well on keywords, but now after some changes I'm also stuck with SEO... Message me in private maybe we can share some thoughs and think something out.