when did ireland gain its independence from great britain
In 1922, after the Irish War of Independence and the Anglo-Irish Treaty, most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom to become the independent Irish Free State, which after the 1937 constitution, began to call itself Ireland. The six northeastern counties, known as Northern Ireland, remained within the United Kingdom. The Irish Civil War followed soon after the War of Independence. The history of Northern Ireland has since been dominated by sporadic sectarian conflict between (mainly Catholic) Irish nationalists and (mainly Protestant) unionists. This conflict erupted into the Troubles in the late 1960s, until peace was achieved with the Belfast Agreement thirty years later.