Original sentence: A majority of the population of the United Kingdom as a whole support reunification.During the 20th century, political violence continued in Northern Ireland, but is virtually unheard of in the Republic.Following the English re-conquest of Ireland in the mid-16th century, series of measures were brought in to quash Irish resistence to British rule.However, in the Republic reunification of the island remains an important political ambition, though one persued through consitituional means.In 1920 the island was paritioned into what would become the Republic of Ireland, where opinion is almost uniformly in favour of independence from the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland, where the population is divided 60:40 in favour of remaining within the United Kingdom.In Northern Ireland, reunification is a goal of Nationalist political parties and of Nationalist terror groups.Resistence to a united Ireland is, coversely, a goal of Unionist political parties and of Unionist terror groups.These were met with centuries of opposition and political violence, which were in turn met with further measures to quash Irish resistence
Edited sentence: Although nationalists and republicans wish for the reunification of Ireland, the island of Ireland has never existed as a single sovereign political state in the modern sense.However, prior to 1922, the island was always considered as a single entity, having been the Kingdom of Ireland for centuries.Thereafter with the enactment of the the Act of Union on 1 January 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland was merged with the Kingdom of Great Britain to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.Until the Act of Union of 1800 the island was governed as a single political entity by an Irish Parliament based in Dublin