Northern Ireland national football team
In 1920, Ireland was partitioned into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. In 1922, Southern Ireland gained independence as the Irish Free State, later to become a republic under the name of Ireland. Amid these political upheavals, a rival football association, the Football Association of Ireland, emerged in Dublin in 1921 and organised a separate league and international team. In 1923, at a time when the home nations had withdrawn from FIFA, the FAI was recognised by FIFA as the governing body of the Irish Free State on the condition that it changed its name to the Football Association of the Irish Free State. The Irish FA continued to organise its national team on an all-Ireland basis.
Partition of Ireland
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 Lloyd George tasked the "Long Committee" to implement 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.