Why was Northern Ireland seperated from Southern Ireland?

Question

Why was Northern Ireland seperated from Southern Ireland?

Answer 1

religious differences

Answer 2

Actually it still is.

The answer to this question is a long one, but I will try and give you a very brief idea.

The truth being that the northern part of Ireland has virtually always been distinct from the rest of Ireland from the time the Gaels invaded and fought against and eventually overcame the native people called the Cruthin, many of whom fled to Scotland.

As time progressed the Island was basically divided into four kingdoms, Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught.

Then came the plantation of Ulster which was a planned process of colonisation which took place during the early 17th century in the reign of James I of England.

Another wave of Scottish immigration to Ireland took place in the 1690s, when tens of thousands of Scots fled a famine in the borders region of Scotland to come to Ulster. It was at this point that Scottish Presbyterians became the majority community in Northern Ireland. These planters are often referred to as Ulster-Scots.

The present-day partition of Ireland into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is largely as a result of the settlement patterns of the Plantations of the 17th century. The descendants of the British Protestant settlers largely favoured a continued link with Britain, whereas the descendants of the  Irish Catholics wanted Irish independence.

Consequently, following the Anglo-Irish settlement of 1921, these six counties that make up present day Northern Ireland remained in the United Kingdom to form Northern Ireland.

I hope this helps.

JB

Answer 3

The area now known as Northern Ireland has had a diverse history. From serving as the bedrock of Irish resistance in the era of the plantations of Queen Elizabeth and James I in other parts of Ireland, it became itself the subject of major planting of Scottish and English settlers after the Flight of the Earls in 1607 (when the native Gaelic aristocracy fled to Catholic Europe).

The all-island Kingdom of Ireland (1541—1800) merged into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 under the terms of the Act of Union, under which the kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain merged, under a government and monarchy based in London. In the early 20th century Unionists, led by Sir Edward Carson, opposed the introduction of Home Rule in Ireland. Unionists were in a minority on the island of Ireland as a whole, but were a majority in the northern province of Ulster, and a very large majority in the counties of Antrim, and Down, small majorities in the counties of Armagh and Londonderry (also known as Derry), with substantial numbers also concentrated in the nationalist-majority counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone. These six counties, containing an overall unionist majority, would later form Northern Ireland.

The clash between the House of Commons and House of Lords over the controversial budget of Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd-George produced the Parliament Act 1911, which enabled the veto of the Lords to be overturned. Given that the Lords had been the unionists' main guarantee that a home rule act would not be enacted, because of the majority of pro-unionist peers in the House, the Parliament Act made Home Rule a likely prospect in Ireland. Opponents to Home Rule, from Conservative Party leaders like Andrew Bonar Law and Lord Randolph Churchill to militant unionists in Ireland threatened the use of violence, producing the Larne Gun Running incident in 1912, when they smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for the Ulster Volunteer Force. Lord Randolph Churchill famously told a unionist audience in Ulster that "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right".

The prospect of civil war in Ireland was seen by some as likely. In 1914 the Third Home Rule Act, which contained provision for a temporary partition, received the Royal Assent. Its implementation was suspended for the duration of the intervening First World War, which was expected to last only a few weeks but in fact lasted four years. By the end of the war the Act was seen as dead in the water, with public opinion in the majority nationalist community having moved from a demand for home rule to something more substantial, independence. Lloyd-George proposed in 1919 a new bill which would divide Ireland into two Home Rule areas, twenty-six counties being ruled from Dublin, six being ruled from Belfast, with a shared Lord Lieutenant of Ireland appointing both executives and a Council of Ireland, which Lloyd-George believed would evolve into an all-Ireland parliament.