A report on Northern Ireland and Ulster

The partition of Ireland (críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.

The territory that became Northern Ireland, within the Irish province of Ulster, had a Protestant and Unionist majority who wanted to maintain ties to Britain.

The conflict in north-east Ulster had a sectarian aspect (see Belfast Pogrom of 1920 and Bloody Sunday (1921)).

In May 1921, Ireland was partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act, which created Northern Ireland.

Since Partition (1921), as Ulster Unionism its goal has been to maintain Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom and to resist a transfer of sovereignty to an all-Ireland republic.

In Ulster where, because of their greater numbers, Protestants were less fearful of sharing political rights with Catholics, combinations of Presbyterian tradesmen, merchants, and tenant farmers protested against an unrepresentative parliament and against an executive in Dublin Castle still appointed, through the office of the Lord Lieutenant, by English ministers.

Belfast (, elsewhere ; from Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford' ) is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast.

Casement Park in west Belfast, home to the Antrim county teams, has a capacity of 32,000 which makes it the second largest Gaelic Athletic Association ground in Ulster.

The Ulster Volunteers were based in the northern province of Ulster.

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.

The sovereign state shares its only land border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

In the late 19th and early 20th-century unionism was particularly strong in parts of Ulster, where industrialisation was more common in contrast to the more agrarian rest of the island, and where the Protestant population was more prominent, with a majority in four counties.

That same year (1948), the republican movement took the decision to focus on Northern Ireland thereafter.

The Plantation of Ulster began in 1609, and the province was heavily colonised with English and Scottish settlers.

Six northeastern counties in Ireland, which since 1920 were being governed under a much more limited form of home rule, immediately seceded from the Free State and remained part of the Union under this limited form of self-government.

The issue was a source of contention throughout Ireland, as a significant majority of Unionists (largely but not exclusively based in Ulster), opposed home rule, fearing that a Catholic Nationalist ("Rome Rule") parliament in Dublin would discriminate or retaliate against them, impose Roman Catholic doctrine, and impose tariffs on industry.

Britain passed a Fourth Home Rule Bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1920, aimed at creating separate parliaments for Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.

Long, a firm unionist, felt free to shape Home Rule in Unionism's favour, and formalised dividing Ireland (and Ulster) into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.

Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland.

Although Ireland had a Catholic majority who wanted self-government, the province of Ulster had a Protestant and unionist majority, largely due to the Plantation of Ulster.