Following the end of the Great War in 1918, issues of Irish independence and the partition of Ireland again came to prominence. The separatist Sinn Féin party won a majority of seats in Ireland, though not in Ulster, where Belfast nationalists continued to vote for members of the Irish Parliamentary Party and unionists for the Unionist Party. Representatives of Sinn Féin refused to sit in the House of Commons, citing their belief that the British had no legitimate right to rule in Ireland. Because they adopted a policy of abstention, the Commons only had the small contingent of the Irish Party representing Irish Nationalism. Easily outnumbered by Irish Unionists, the Ulster Unionist Council were able to attain nearly all of their constitutional aims for Ulster. The result was a separate territory that would be as large as Unionists could control under their own parliament and jurisdiction. Under the terms of the agreement, six of Ulster's nine counties would be partitioned into a territory to be called "Northern Ireland" and administered by a separate Belfast parliament with the remaining 26 counties being known as "Southern Ireland" and ruled by a semi-autonomous Dublin parliament.