A report on Partition of Ireland and Ulster Volunteers

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.

In 1914, unionists smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for use by the Ulster Volunteers (UVF), a paramilitary organisation formed to oppose Home Rule.

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

This movement also set up the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

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

The demand for Home Rule was eventually granted by the British Government in 1912, immediately prompting a prolonged crisis within the United Kingdom as Ulster unionists formed an armed organisation – the Ulster Volunteers (UVF) – to resist this measure of devolution, at least in territory they could control.

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.

Joined by loyalist labour, on the eve of World War I this broad opposition to Irish self-government concentrated in Belfast and its hinterlands as Ulster Unionism, and prepared an armed resistance—the Ulster Volunteers.

During the Home Rule Crisis (1912–14), loyalists founded the paramilitary Ulster Volunteers to prevent Ulster becoming part of a self-governing Ireland.

This was followed by the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and partition of Ireland: most of Ireland became an independent state, while most of Ulster remained within the United Kingdom as the self-governing territory of Northern Ireland.

At the time of the partition of Ireland most of the island was Roman Catholic and largely indigenous, while a sizeable portion of the country, particularly in the north, was Protestant and chiefly descended from people from Great Britain who colonised the land as settlers during the reign of King James I in 1609.

In 1912 they formed the Ulster Volunteers, an armed wing of Ulster Unionism who stated that they would resist Home Rule by force.

After the Bill passed its first readings in 1913, Ulster Unionists' opposition became a repeat scenario of events in 1886 and 1893, their leader Sir Edward Carson approving of an Ulster Volunteer militia to oppose Home Rule.

The government remained committed to introducing Home Rule in Ireland, and in 1921 implemented the Fourth Home Rule Act, which partitioned Ireland into Northern Ireland and a non-functioning Southern Ireland prior to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

The continuation of the war beyond 1915 and subsequent developments in Ireland resulted in further postponements, meaning that the Act never became effective; it was finally superseded by a fourth home rule bill, enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which partitioned Ireland, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, both intended to have Home Rule.

By April 1912, the Irish Unionist Alliance's managing politician, Sir Edward Carson, could review 100,000 marching Ulster Volunteers.

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).

Unionist fear of Home Rule, or worse, separation, solidified after the Rising, and the Unionist vote was enhanced in Ulster by the increased electorate. It was the first election since the Ulster Covenant, the formation of the Ulster Volunteers (UVF), and the Battle of the Somme.

Unionists in Ulster, determined to prevent any measure of home rule for Ireland, formed a paramilitary force, the Ulster Volunteers, which threatened to resist by force of arms the implementation of the Act and the authority of any Dublin Parliament.

Unionists continued to demand that Ulster be excluded, the solution of partition appealing to Craig; Carson, however, as a Dublin man, did not want partition, which would leave 250,000 Southern Unionists at the mercy of a huge nationalist majority.