Revenue stamps of the United Kingdom
When Ireland was partitioned into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland in 1921, separate revenue stamps were issued for both entities. Southern Ireland stamps saw little use since that political entity was quickly superseded by the Provisional Government of Ireland and later the Irish Free State (both of which applied overprints on various British and Irish revenue stamps). However, Northern Ireland continued to use separate revenue stamps until the 1980s. Northern Irish revenues include Civil Service, Dog Licence, Excise and National Insurance stamps, among many others.
Dissident Irish Republican campaign
Since the 1169 invasion of Ireland by Norman knights at the request of ousted King of Leinster Dermot MacMurrough, Ireland has, in part or in whole, been under English, and later British, administration. Rebellions against rule from Great Britain were unsuccessful until 1919–1921's Anglo-Irish War, when the original Irish Republican Army (IRA) succeeded in removing 26 of Ireland's 32 counties from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as the Irish Free State. Although previously, the offer of Irish Home rule was agreed in the third Home Rule Bill, implementation was suspended by violent opposition in Ulster and the forming of the UVF, and later by the outbreak of the First World War. Following the partition of Ireland by the Crown, the remaining six counties, located in the province of Ulster, became Northern Ireland and remained a part of the renamed United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.