NI 100: Tracing the historical past of the 100-year-old Irish border

By Eimear Flanagan
BBC News NI

image copyrightGetty Images/Bettmann

image captionNI police, including members of the Ulster Special Constabulary, guarding a road near the Fermanagh/Cavan border (circa 1920s)

On May 3 1921, Northern Ireland officially came into existence as the partition of the island of Ireland took legal effect.

The decision to split Ireland in two followed decades of turmoil between nationalists, who wanted independence from British rule, and unionists, who wanted to remain in the United Kingdom.

The border divided the 32-county island into two separate jurisdictions – six counties in the north-east became Northern Ireland, which is still part of the UK.

The other 26-county territory became the Irish Free State, but is now the Republic of Ireland.

As Northern Ireland marks its centenary, BBC News NI looks back at the earliest days of the Irish border and how its controversial 310-mile (500km) route was decided.

Why did partition happen?

image copyrightHulton Archive/Getty…

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