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 In 1923, at a time when the home nations had withdrawn from FIFA, the FAI was recognised by FIFA as the governing body of the Irish Free State on the condition that it changed its name to the Football Association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.
The Troubles
Northern Ireland remained a part of the United Kingdom, albeit under a separate system of government whereby it was given its own parliament and devolved government. While this arrangement met the desires of unionists to remain part of the United Kingdom, nationalists largely viewed the partition of Ireland as an illegal and arbitrary division of the island against the will of the majority of its people. They argued that the Northern Ireland state was neither legitimate nor democratic, but created with a deliberately gerrymandered unionist majority. Catholics initially composed about 35% of its population. A total of 557 people, mostly Catholics, were killed in political or sectarian violence from 1920 to 1922 in the six counties that would become Northern Ireland, both during and after the Irish War of Independence. The result was communal strife between Catholics and Protestants, with some historians describing this violence, especially that in Belfast, as a pogrom, although historian Peter Hart argues that the term is not appropriate given the reciprocity of violence in Northern Ireland.