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 In 1923, at a time when the home nations had withdrawn from FIFA, the FAI was recognised by FIFA as the governing body of the Irish Free State on the condition that it changed its name to the Football Association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.
History of Northern Ireland
Throughout this period, the main paramilitary organisations began to form. 1972 was the most violent year of the conflict. In 1970 the Provisional IRA, was created as a breakaway from what then became known as the Official IRA (the Provisionals came from various political perspectives, though most rejected the increasingly Marxist outlook of the Officials and were united in their rejection of the Official's view that physical force alone would not end partition), and a campaign of sectarian attacks by loyalist paramilitary groups like the Ulster Defence Association (formed to co-ordinate the various Loyalist vigilante groups that sprung up) and others brought Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. On 30 March 1972, the British government, unwilling to grant the unionist Northern Ireland government more authoritarian special powers, and now convinced of its inability to restore order, pushed through emergency legislation that prorogued the Northern Ireland Parliament and introduced direct rule from London. In 1973 the British government dissolved the Parliament of Northern Ireland and its government under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.