Trump Says ‘Unified’ Ireland Will Happen: How Ireland Was Partitioned Into North and South

US President Donald Trump has backed the idea of a “unified” Ireland, reviving attention around the century-old division between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which remains part of the United Kingdom.

Trump made the comments on Saturday (September 12) while speaking to reporters in Dublin during a two-day visit to Ireland. “I don’t want ⁠to cause any problems, but ‌I will ‌tell you, I’d love ‌to see it unified… The way I look at it, it’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now,” he said.

His remarks drew responses from the UK government and political parties across Ireland and Northern Ireland. They came two weeks after UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said during a visit to Northern Ireland that a referendum on unification was “off the table”.

Ireland’s partition followed centuries of British rule and a growing political divide between Irish nationalists, who sought self-government, and Unionists, who wanted Ireland to remain part of the UK.

Two competing visions for Ireland

Ireland had been ruled by Great Britain since the 13th century. Opposition to British rule developed over time and took different forms, including parliamentary campaigns as well as violence.

Religion was one factor in the political divide. Most of Ireland’s population was Catholic, while Protestants dominated Britain and parts of what is now Northern Ireland.

By the late 19th century, two broad political strands had emerged.

Irish nationalists, who largely belonged to the Catholic majority, wanted a separate Irish state. At various points, they campaigned for “Home Rule”, which meant transferring the right to govern Ireland from British to Irish hands. By the beginning of the 20th century, Home Rule had gained enough momentum to appear a realistic possibility.

Unionists, who were largely Protestant, opposed the demand. They were concentrated mainly in the north-eastern province of Ulster and believed Ireland should remain part of the UK.

Their opposition to Home Rule was also rooted in concerns about becoming a Protestant minority governed by a Catholic majority in an independent Ireland.

How Home Rule led towards partition

After three attempts in the British Parliament, Home Rule became law in 1914. The legislation gave the Irish the right to govern themselves but excluded six mainly Protestant counties in Ulster.

Those six counties would eventually become Northern Ireland.

The prospect of Home Rule brought tensions close to civil war. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914, however, suspended the hostilities.

By the time the war ended in 1918, Sinn Fein had become the dominant party among Irish nationalists. Its name translates to “We Ourselves”.

In the 1918 UK general election, Sinn Fein became the largest political party in Ireland. Its MPs abstained from the British Parliament in Westminster and instead established a rival parliament in Dublin in January 1919.

The same month, the Irish Republican Army began a guerrilla campaign against British rule. The conflict became known as the Anglo-Irish War or the Irish War of Independence and lasted from 1919 to 1921.

The 1920 Act that divided the island

With the war continuing, the British government sought a political settlement. This resulted in the Government of Ireland Act, 1920.

The legislation stated that Ireland would remain part of Britain while giving a “Home Rule Parliament” in Dublin some control over its own affairs. It also formally partitioned the island into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.

Of Ireland’s 32 counties, six were allocated to Northern Ireland, while Southern Ireland comprised the remaining 26.

Jane Ohlmeyer, a leading historian of early modern Ireland and empire, earlier told The Indian Express: “The legislation that partitioned Ireland was the same legislation later used to partition India and Pakistan, and also informed partition elsewhere, including Israel and Palestine.”

The Act provided for separate local parliaments in Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. They would deal with issues such as education and health, while Britain would retain responsibility for major policies including foreign policy and the military.

Proportional representation was also to be used in elections to ensure minorities were adequately represented.

A Council of Ireland, comprising representatives from the north and south, was to discuss issues of mutual interest and work towards establishing a single parliament for the whole of Ireland.

The Unionists in the north accepted the Act. Sinn Fein rejected it, objecting to the lack of provisions for complete independence as well as to partition.

From war to the Irish Free State

The escalating military and economic costs of the Anglo-Irish War eventually forced both the British government and most Irish nationalists to call a truce in July 1921. In July 1921, the British government and most Irish nationalists agreed to a truce.

Negotiations followed and culminated in the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, bringing the war to an end.

Under the treaty, Southern Ireland became the Irish Free State. It was a dominion within the British Commonwealth but was granted a greater degree of independence, including its own parliament in Dublin and an army.

The treaty also gave Northern Ireland the right to opt out of the Irish Free State. Its representatives exercised that option, and Northern Ireland remained within the United Kingdom.

The political status of the southern state changed again in the following decades. In 1937, the Irish Free State adopted a new constitution and renamed the country Éire, or Ireland.

In 1949, it became a republic and left the Commonwealth.

Partition did not end the conflict

The division of the island was followed decades later by another period of intense political violence.

“The Troubles”, which lasted from the late 1960s until the 1990s, saw militant groups belonging to both Unionist and nationalist factions carry out bombings and shootings in pursuit of their political objectives.

The conflict eventually ended with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998.

Professor Stewart Weaver, who teaches history at the University of Rochester, said in a Q&A in 2021 that “the strong referendum in favor of the Good Friday Agreement” on both sides of the border suggested that “there was a political will, if not toward unification, at least toward reconciliation”.

Why reunification remains possible

The possibility of Irish reunification has continued to be discussed in the years since the Good Friday Agreement.

The 2016 Brexit vote, in which the UK chose to leave the European Union, complicated the question of cross-border trade because Northern Ireland remained part of the UK while the Republic of Ireland remained an EU member.

Weaver also said that changing demographics in Northern Ireland, along with growing liberalisation and secularisation in Ireland, meant that reunification remained a possibility.