page_title: Partition of Ireland
section_title: 1914–1922
hierarchical_section_title: Partition of Ireland / Background / 1914–1922
caption_attribution_description: English: Results map of the Irish (UK) general election of 1918.
context_page_description: The partition of Ireland was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided the island of Ireland into two separate polities. It took place on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The smaller of the two, Northern Ireland, was duly created with a devolved administration and forms part of the United Kingdom today, but the larger one, intended as a home rule jurisdiction to be known as Southern Ireland, failed to gain acceptance. The territory instead became independent and is now a sovereign state also named Ireland and additionally described as the Republic of Ireland.
  The Act of 1920 was intended to create two self-governing territories within Ireland, with both remaining within the United Kingdom. It also contained provisions for co-operation between the two territories and for the eventual reunification of Ireland. However, in 1922, following the War of Independence and the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the southern and western part became the Irish Free State, while Northern Ireland exercised its option to remain in the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: The Home Rule Act reached the statute book with Royal Assent in September 1914 (although the amending Bill was abandoned) but, because of the First World War, its commencement was suspended for one year or for the duration of what was expected to be a short war. It intended to grant self-government to the entire island of Ireland as a single jurisdiction under Dublin administration, but the final version as enacted in 1914 included an amendment clause for six Ulster counties to remain under London administration for a proposed trial period of six years, yet to be finally agreed. This was belatedly conceded by John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, as a compromise in order to pacify Ulster unionists and avoid civil war.
  In 1917–18, the Irish Convention attempted to resolve what sort of Home Rule would follow the First World War. Unionist and nationalist politicians met in a common forum for the last time before partition. The Ulster unionists preferred to remain within the United Kingdom; the nationalist Home Rule parties and the Southern Unionists argued against partition. The growing Sinn Féin party refused to attend.
  Soon after the end of the war, Sinn Féin won the overwhelming majority of the Irish parliamentary seats in the UK general election of 1918, and in January 1919 the Sinn Féin members declared unilaterally an independent (all-island) Irish Republic. Unionists, however, won a majority of seats in four of the nine counties of Ulster and affirmed their continuing loyalty to the United Kingdom. Following the Paris Peace Conference, in September 1919 David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, tasked the Long Committee with implementing Britain's commitment to introduce Home Rule, which was based on the policy of Walter Long, and some findings of the Irish Convention. The result was to be two home-rule Irish jurisdictions, and in November 1920 the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was enacted. As a result of this, in April 1921 the island was partitioned into Southern and Northern Ireland.
  On 5 May 1921, the Ulster Unionist leader Sir James Craig met with the President of Sinn Féin, Éamon de Valera, in secret near Dublin. Each restated his position and nothing new was agreed. On 10 May De Valera told the Dáil that the meeting "... was of no significance". In June that year, shortly before the truce that ended the Anglo-Irish War, David Lloyd George invited the Republic's President de Valera to talks in London on an equal footing with the new Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig, which de Valera attended. De Valera's policy in the ensuing negotiations was that the future of Ulster was an Irish-British matter to be resolved between two sovereign states, and that Craig should not attend. After the truce came into effect on 11 July, Lloyd George made it clear to de Valera, 'that the achievement of a republic through negotiation was impossible'.
  
  On 20 July, Lloyd George further declared to de Valera that: 
  The form in which the settlement is to take effect will depend upon Ireland herself. It must allow for full recognition of the existing powers and privileges of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, which cannot be abrogated except by their own consent. For their part, the British Government entertain an earnest hope that the necessity of harmonious co-operation amongst Irishmen of all classes and creeds will be recognised throughout Ireland, and they will welcome the day when by those means unity is achieved. But no such common action can be secured by force.
   In reply, de Valera wrote 
  We most earnestly desire to help in bringing about a lasting peace between the peoples of these two islands, but see no avenue by which it can be reached if you deny Ireland's essential unity and set aside the principle of national self-determination.
  The treaty as ratified in December 1921 and January 1922 allowed for a re-drawing of the mutual border by a Boundary Commission. Northern Ireland was deemed to be a part of the Irish Free State, whenever it became established, but its parliament wou
caption: Result of the 1918 general election in Ireland showing the collapse of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the dramatic swing in support for Sinn Féin from a base of zero seats
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