The Troubles of the 1920s was a period of conflict in what is now Northern Ireland from June 1920 until June 1922, during and after the Irish War of Independence and the partition of Ireland. It was mainly a communal conflict between Protestant Unionists, who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, and Catholic Irish nationalists, who backed Irish independence. More than 500 people were killed and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them from the Catholic minority.