On June 22, 1921, King George V opened the new Parliament of Northern Ireland in Belfast City Hall, formally establishing the devolved government in the six counties. The King's appeal for reconciliation came too late to prevent the partition of Ireland, but the event marked the formal creation of a Protestant-dominated state. Northern Ireland's parliament would rule for fifty years until it was prorogued in 1972.

The opening of the Northern Ireland Parliament was a defining moment for Ulster unionist poetry, with loyalist poets celebrating the new state as a bastion of British identity. Conversely, nationalist poets saw it as the institutionalization of partition and a defeat for Irish unity. The event's legacy is reflected in the poetry of the Troubles, which often grappled with the reality of a divided Ireland.