Northern Ireland law
Northern Ireland law refers to the legal system of statute and common law operating in Northern Ireland since the partition of Ireland established Northern Ireland as a separate jurisdiction within the United Kingdom in 1921.
For the purposes of private international law the United Kingdom is divided into three distinct legal jurisdictions:Northern Ireland is a common law jurisdiction. Although its common law is similar to that in England and Wales, and partially derives from the same sources, there are some important differences in law and procedure between Northern Ireland and England and Wales. While influenced by English law, the Northern Ireland legal system is distinctive for a number of reasons: it has roots in Irish common law prior to Irish independence in 1921; following Irish independence, Northern Ireland became a devolved jurisdiction within the United Kingdom.
Decolonization
The independence movement in Ireland and the 19th and early 20th century was marked by occasional outbursts of violence, culminating in the small-scale Easter Rising of 1916 and the much larger Irish War of Independence of 1919 to 1921. It was resolved when London gave independence to the Catholic regions of southern Ireland, and kept control of Protestant Northern Ireland.