A report on Partition of Ireland, Irish nationalism and Irish War of Independence

This, and the subsequent Irish War of Independence, led to the partition of Ireland.

Most Irish nationalists object to the use of Ulster in this context.

Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating a devolved government for the six northeastern counties.

Meanwhile, the majority in Southern Ireland (which became the Irish Free State in 1922), and a significant minority in Northern Ireland, were Irish nationalists and Catholics who wanted a united independent Ireland.

The creation of Northern Ireland was accompanied by violence both in defence of and against partition.

It is now seen as a key moment in modern Irish history because it saw the overwhelming defeat of the moderate nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), which had dominated the Irish political landscape since the 1880s, and a landslide victory for the radical Sinn Féin party.

The Irish War of Independence was conducted under this revolutionary government which sought international recognition, and set about the process of state-building.

This was due to the failure to have the Home Rule Bill implemented when the IPP resisted the partition of Ireland demanded by Ulster Unionists in 1914, 1916 and 1917, but also popular antagonism towards the British authorities created by the execution of most of the leaders of the 1916 rebels and by their botched attempt to introduce Home Rule on the conclusion of the Irish Convention linked with military conscription in Ireland (see Conscription Crisis of 1918).

Between 1919 and 1921 the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who were loyal to the Dáil, fought the British Army and Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), a predominantly Roman Catholic force, in the Irish War of Independence.

During the late 1980s the British Government became increasingly willing to give concessions to Irish Nationalism, such as the Anglo-Irish Agreement and extending to, the Northern Ireland Security, Peter Brooke's declaration of "no selfish, strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland.", causing uproar amongst strands of Unionism.

A variant of this is Irish republican legitimism, which also rejects the Republic of Ireland because of its tacit acceptance of partition and continuing British rule in Northern Ireland.

Later that year, Irish nationalists formed a rival militia, the Irish Volunteers, to safeguard Home Rule.

After the war, the British Government decided to partition Ireland into two self-governing regions: Northern Ireland (which overall had a Protestant/unionist majority) and Southern Ireland.

However, by 1920 the Irish War of Independence was raging and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was launching attacks on British forces in Ireland.

He returned to Ireland after being jailed in England and became one of the leading political figures of the War of Independence.

Nationalists expected its report to recommend that largely nationalist areas become part of the Free State, and many hoped this would make Northern Ireland so small it would not be economically viable.

Hence neither the pro- nor anti-Treaty sides made many complaints about partition in the Treaty Debates.

At the outbreak of the war, most Irish people, regardless of political affiliation, supported the war in much the same way as their British counterparts, and both nationalist and unionist leaders initially backed the British war effort.

This led to the Irish War of Independence (1919–1922), fought between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces.

During the War of Independence, the British government partitioned Ireland.

After a short spell in South Africa, Griffith founded and edited the Irish nationalist newspaper The United Irishman in 1899.

However, this idea was never really embraced by later separatist leaders, especially Michael Collins, and never came to anything, although Kevin O'Higgins toyed with the idea as a means of ending partition, shortly before his assassination in 1927.

Sinn Féin's MPs set up an Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann and declared independence for the Irish Republic; the Irish War of Independence followed almost immediately.