Description

In the years after the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland a new independence movement had emerged and in 191819 the political party Sinn Fin and its paramilitary partner the Irish Republican Army began a political struggle and an armed uprising against British rule By 1922 the United Kingdom had lost a very substantial portion of its territory as the Irish Free State came into being amid a brutal civil war At the same time Ireland was partitioned and a new unionist government was established in what was now Northern Ireland