BBC News
By Ciaran McCauley
Just over a century ago, Ireland was united as one island under British rule. But that was just about to change forever.
With the passing of the Government of Ireland Act by Westminster on 23 December 1920, the island would be partitioned, with new governments to be formed in Dublin and Belfast to oversee two new jurisdictions.
This was the culmination of one of the most tumultuous decades in Irish, and European history and set the path to an eventual Irish Republic.
Below we look at the years between 1916 and 1922 and the key moments that led to partition and the establishment of Northern Ireland.
There wasn t much seasonal cheer in official circles in Dublin, Belfast or London at Christmas 1920.
There just wasn t time.
These few weeks saw Partition become a reality for the first time, with the creation in law of Northern Ireland, and seemingly the hopes for peace on the island dashed, hopes that had flickered for a few precious months.
And yet, and yet.
No sooner than hope for peace had been crushed, it was raised again. The imposition of that most alien of concepts for Nationalists, the Partition of Ireland, had in fact created the conditions for making the peace with Britain, on terms well in advance of what the British had declared themselves willing to offer.
SCOTLAND SUPPLEMENT II - A joint oppressor
Left nationalists are in thrall to a bogus history, argues Jack Conrad. Scotland was not subject to an English takeover with the 1707 Act of Union. Nor does Scotland suffer from English cultural imperialism
Europe’s first nations had an embryonic existence, which for the sake of neatness is usually dated back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Here we have fertilisation, eg, Geoffrey Chaucer and his use of Middle English in works such as
Tales of Caunterbury (1400). At the time the prestigious languages in England were Norman-French and Latin. Chaucer’s Middle English reflected the growing importance of market relations: ie, circulation, and the rise of capitalism. He was the first author of standing to use many common English phrases and words: ‘add’, ‘agree’, ‘desk’, ‘dishonest’, etc. Because of the printing press, by the early 16th century, his writings gained a mass audience amongst the educated minority. All part of