Ulster

Ulster Ulaidh / Cúige Uladh
Flag
State	United Kingdom Ireland
Counties	Antrim (UK) Armagh (UK) Cavan (IE) Donegal (IE) Down (UK) Fermanagh (UK) Londonderry (UK) Monaghan (IE) Tyrone (UK)
Area
- Total	24,481 km2 (9,452.2 sq mi)
Population (2006 estimate)
- Total	1,993,918

Ulster (Irish: Ulaidh / Cúige Uladh) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island.

Ulster is composed of nine counties: Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone comprise Northern Ireland, while Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan are part of the Republic of Ireland.

Contents 1 Terminology 2 Geography and demographics 3 Counties 4 Largest settlements 5 Languages and dialects 6 Prehistory 7 History and politics 7.1 Early history 7.2 Plantations and civil wars 7.3 Emigration 7.4 Republicanism, rebellion and communal strife 7.5 Industrialisation, Home Rule and partition 7.6 Current politics 8 Sport 9 References noted 10 General references 11 Further reading 12 See also 13 External links

[edit] Terminology

The first part of the name Ulster derives from the Irish Cúige Uladh (IPA: [ˈkuːɟ ˈʌlˠu, ˈʌlˠi]), meaning "Fifth of the Ulaid". In ancient times, the island was divided into five regions, with the Ulaid tribes inhabiting this northernmost region. The latter part of the name derives either from the Irish tír or the Old Norse staðr, both of which translate as "land" or "territory".

The Irish word for someone/something from Ulster is Ultach. The Latin word for someone/something from Ulster is Ultonian, which derives from the Latin name for the province, Ultonia.^{[citation needed]} Other words that have been used are Ullish and Ulsterman/Ulsterwoman.

Northern Ireland is often referred to as 'Ulster',^[1] despite including only six of Ulster's nine counties. This usage is most common amongst people in Northern Ireland who are unionist,^[2] although it is also used by the media throughout the United Kingdom.^[3][4] Some people, mainly Irish nationalists, object to this use of the term.^[2]

[edit] Geography and demographics

Ulster has a population of just under 2 million people and an area of 24,481 square kilometres (9,452 sq mi). Its biggest city, Belfast has an urban area of over half a million inhabitants. Six of Ulster's nine counties, Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry (formerly known as County Coleraine before being renamed and expanded during the Plantation of Ulster) and Tyrone, form Northern Ireland and remained part of the United Kingdom after the partition of Ireland in 1921. Three Ulster counties, Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan form part of the Republic of Ireland. About half of Ulster's population lives in Counties Antrim and Down. Across the nine counties, according to the aggregate UK 2001 Census for Northern Ireland, and Irish 2002 Census for counties Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan, there is a very slim Catholic plurality over Protestant (49% against 48%), but not an overall majority (people of neither religion, "no religion" or those "not stating" religion making up the balance). The traditional counties of Northern Ireland are now ceremonial, with day-to-day administration in 26 districts

The biggest lake in Ireland, and in the United Kingdom, Lough Neagh, lies in eastern Ulster. The province's highest point, Slieve Donard (848 metres (2,782 ft)), stands in County Down. The most northerly point of Ireland, Malin Head is in County Donegal as are the sixth-highest (601 metres (1,972 ft)) sea cliffs in Europe, at Slieve League. The longest river in Ireland, the Shannon, rises at Shannon Pot in County Cavan with underground tributaries from County Fermanagh. Volcanic activity in eastern Ulster led to the formation of the Antrim Plateau and the Giant's Causeway, one of Ireland's three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The geographical centre of Ulster lies between the villages of Pomeroy and Carrickmore in County Tyrone. In terms of area, County Donegal is the largest county in all of Ulster. The two largest cities in the province are Belfast and Derry. Belfast is Ireland's second largest city, and the largest in Northern Ireland.

Ulster's main airport is Belfast International Airport (popularly called Aldergrove Airport), which is located at Aldergrove, near Antrim Town, in County Antrim. George Best Belfast City Airport (sometimes referred to as "the City Airport" or "the Harbour Airport") is the other, smaller airport in that city. It is located at Sydenham in East Belfast. The City of Derry Airport is located at Eglinton on the eastern outskirts of the City of Derry and is a major airport for the city and for County Londonderry, western County Tyrone, and County Donegal.

[edit] Counties

County	Population	Area
County Antrim (Contae Aontroma)	616,384	2,844 square kilometres (1,098 sq mi)
County Armagh (Contae Ard Mhacha)	126,803	1,254 square kilometres (484 sq mi)
County Cavan (Contae an Chabháin)	56,546	1,831 square kilometres (707 sq mi)
County Donegal (Contae Dhún na nGall/Thír Chonaill)	137,575	4,841 square kilometres (1,869 sq mi)
County Down (Contae an Dúin)	410,487	2,448 square kilometres (945 sq mi)
County Fermanagh (Contae Fhear Manach)	54,033	1,691 square kilometres (653 sq mi)
County Londonderry (Contae Dhoire)	233,500	2,074 square kilometres (801 sq mi)
County Monaghan (Contae Mhuineacháin)	52,593	1,294 square kilometres (500 sq mi)
County Tyrone (Contae Thír Eoghain)	158,460	3,155 square kilometres (1,218 sq mi)
Grand Total	1,993,918	24,481 square kilometres (9,452 sq mi)

Counties shaded in grey are in the Republic of Ireland. Counties shaded in pink are in Northern Ireland.

[edit] Largest settlements

Settlements in Ulster with at least 25,000 inhabitants, listed in order of population:

• Belfast (276,459)
• Derry Urban Area (90,663)
• Bangor (76,403)
• Lisburn (71,465)
• Newtownabbey (62,056)
• Craigavon Urban Area (57,685)
• Portadown (30,000)
• Ballymena (28,717)
• Newtownards (27,821)
• Newry (27,433)
• Carrickfergus (27,201)
• Lurgan (25,000)

[edit] Languages and dialects

Most people in Ulster speak English. Irish is the next most commonly spoken language. The language is taught in all schools in the counties that are part of the Republic. In responses to the 2001 census in Northern Ireland 10% of the population had "some knowledge of Irish",^[5] 4.7% to "speak, read, write and understand" Irish.^[5] Large parts of County Donegal are Gaeltacht areas where Irish is the first language and some people in west Belfast also speak Irish, especially in the 'Gaeltacht Quarter'.^[6] The dialect of Irish (Gaeilge) most commonly spoken in Ulster (especially throughout Northern Ireland and County Donegal) is Gaeilge Thír Chonaill or Donegal Irish, also known as Gaeilge Uladh or Ulster Irish. Donegal Irish has many similarities to Scottish Gaelic. Cantonese forms the third most common language, mostly due to the considerable Chinese community of Belfast, the province's largest city. Ulster Scots (a dialect of Scots which is also sometimes known by the neologism Ullans) is also spoken in County Down and The Ards, County Antrim, County Londonderry and Donegal.^[7]

[edit] Prehistory

The archaeology of Ulster, formerly called Ulandia, gives examples of "ritual enclosures" such as the "Giant's Ring" near Belfast which is an earth bank about 590 feet in diameter and 15 feet high in the centre of which there is a dolmen (Riordain, 66).^[8]

[edit] History and politics

[edit] Early history

Ulster is one of the four Irish provinces. Its name derives from the Irish language Cúige Uladh (pronounced "Kooi-gah UH-loo"), meaning "'fifth' of the Ulaidh", named for the ancient inhabitants of the region.

The province's early story extends further back than written records and survives mainly in legends such as the Ulster Cycle.

In early medieval Ireland, the Uí Néill dynasty displaced the Ulaid and dominated Ulster from their base in Tír Eóghain, most of which forms modern County Tyrone. Among the High Kings of Ireland were Áed Findliath (died 879), Niall Glúndub (died 919), and Domnall ua Néill (died 980), all of the Cenél nEógain branch of the Uí Néill. Their descendants took the surname Mac Lochlainn (McLaughlin), ruling the kingdom of Ailech.

Domnall Ua Lochlainn (died 1121) and Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn (died 1166) were of this dynasty. The Mac Lochlainn were in 1241 overthrown by their cousions, the clan Ó Néill (see O'Neill dynasty). The Ó Néill's were from then on established as Ulster's most powerful Gaelic family.

The Ó Domhnaill (O'Donnell) dynasty were Ulster's second most powerful clan from the early thirteenth-century through to the beginning of the seventeenth-century. The O'Donnells ruled over Tír Chonaill (most of modern County Donegal) in West Ulster.

After the Norman invasion of Ireland in the twelfth century, the east of the province fell by conquest to Norman barons, first De Courcy (died 1219), then Hugh de Lacy (1176–1243), who founded the Earldom of Ulster based on the modern counties of Antrim and Down.

However, by the end of the 14th century the Earldom had collapsed and Ulster had become the only Irish province completely outside of English control.

In the 1600s Ulster was the last redoubt of the traditional Gaelic way of life, and following the defeat of the Irish forces in the Nine Years War (1594–1603) at the battle of Kinsale (1601), Elizabeth I's English forces succeeded in subjugating Ulster and all of Ireland.

The Gaelic leaders of Ulster, the O'Neills and O'Donnells, finding their power under English suzerainty limited, decamped en masse in 1607 (the Flight of the Earls) to Roman Catholic Europe. This allowed the English Crown to plant Ulster with more loyal English and Scottish planters, a process which began in earnest in 1610.

[edit] Plantations and civil wars

The Plantation of Ulster (Irish: Plandáil Uladh) was the organised colonisation (or plantation) of Ulster by people from the British Empire. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606,^[9][10][11] while official plantation controlled by King James I of England and VI of Scotland began in 1609. All land owned by Irish chieftains the Ó Neills and Ó Donnells (along with those of their supporters) who fought against the British in the Nine Years' War (Ireland) were confiscated and used to settle the colonists. The Counties Tyrconnell, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, Coleraine and Armagh comprised the official Colony^[12] however most of the counties including the most heavily colonized Counties Antrim and Down were privately colonised.^[9][10][13] These counties, though not officially designated as subject to Plantation, had suffered violent de-populatation during the previous wars and proved attractive to Private Colonialists from nearby Britain.

The official reason for the Plantation is said to have been to pay for the costly Nine Years' War (Ireland)^[14] but this view was not shared by all in the British establishment most notably the British Attorney-General of Ireland in 1609 Sir John Davies (poet)

A barbarous country must be first broken by a war before it will be capable of good government ; and when it is fully subdued and conquered, if it be not well planted and governed after the conquest, it will eftsoons return to the former barbarism^[15]

The Plantation of Ulster continued well into the 18th century, interrupted only by the Irish Rebellion of 1641, This Rebellion was initially led by Phelim O'Neill, and was intended to overthrow British rule rapidly, but quickly degenerated into attacks on Colonialists, in which dispossessed Irish slaughtered thousands of the Colonialists. In the ensuing wars (1641–1653, fought against the background of civil war in England, Scotland and Ireland), Ulster became a battleground between the Colonialists and the native Irish. In 1646, an Irish army under command by Owen Roe O'Neill inflicted a defeat on a Scottish Covenanter army at Benburb in County Tyrone, but the native Irish forces failed to follow up their victory and the war lapsed into stalemate. The war in Ulster ended with the defeat of the native army at the Battle of Scarrifholis on the western outskirts of Letterkenny, County Donegal in 1650, as part of the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland conducted by Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army, the aim of which was to expel all native Irish to the Province of Connaught^[16]

Forty years later, in 1688-1691, The Williamite war in Ireland began, the belligerents of which were the Williamites and Jacobites. The war was partly due to a dispute over the rightful head of the British Monarchy, and thus the ruler of the British Empire, but also part of the greater War of the Grand Alliance fought between King Louis XIV of France and his allies, and a European-wide coalition the Grand Alliance, led by William of Orange and Leopold I of the holy Roman Empire, supported by the Vatican and many other nations, the Grand Alliance was a cross-denominational alliance designed to stop French eastward colonialist expansion under King Louis XIV with whom James II was allied.

The majority of Irish people were ("Jacobites") and supported James II due to his 1687 Declaration of Indulgence or as it is also known, The Declaration for the Liberty of Conscience, that granted religious freedom to all denominations in England, Scotland and Ireland and also due to James II's promise to the Irish Parliament of an eventual right to self determination^[17] [1]. However, James II was deposed in the Glorious Revolution, and the majority of Ulster Colonialists (Williamites) backed William of Orange. It is of note that both the Williamite and Jacobite armies were religiously mixed; William of Orange's own elite forces, the Dutch Blue Guards had a papal banner with them during the invasion, many of them being Dutch Catholics.^[18]

At the start of the war, Irish Jacobites controlled most of Ireland for James II, with the exception of the Williamite strongholds at Derry and at Enniskillen in Ulster. The Jacobites besieged Derry from December 1688 to July 1689, ending when a Williamite army from Britain relieved the city. The Williamites based in Enniskillen defeated another Jacobite army at the battle of Newtownbutler on July 28, 1689. Thereafter, Ulster remained firmly under Williamite control and William's forces completed their conquest of the rest of Ireland in the next two years. The war provided Protestant loyalists with the iconic victories of the Siege of Derry, the Battle of the Boyne (1 July 1690) and the Battle of Aughrim (12 July 1691), all of which the Orange Order commemorate each year.

The Williamites' victory in this war ensured British rule in Ireland for over 200 years. The Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland excluded most of Ulster's population from having any Civil power on religious grounds. Roman Catholics (descended from the indigenous Irish) and Presbyterians (mainly descended from Scottish Colonialists) both suffered discrimination under the Penal Laws, which gave full political rights only to Anglican Protestants (mostly descended from English settlers). In the 1690s, Scottish Presbyterians became a majority in Ulster, due to a large influx of them into the Province.

[edit] Emigration

Considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots immigrated to the North America colonies throughout the 18th century (160,000 settled in what would become the United States between 1717 and 1770 alone).

Disdaining (or forced out of) the heavily English regions on the Atlantic coast, most groups of Ulster-Scots settlers crossed into the "western mountains," where their descendants populated the Appalachian regions and the Ohio Valley. Here they lived on the frontiers of America, carving their own world out of the wilderness. The Scotch-Irish soon became the dominant culture of the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Author (and U.S. Senator) Jim Webb puts forth a thesis in his book Born Fighting to suggest that the character traits he ascribes to the Scots-Irish such as loyalty to kin, mistrust of governmental authority, and a propensity to bear arms, helped shape the American identity.

In the United States Census, 2000, 4.3 million Americans claimed Scots-Irish ancestry. Interestingly, the areas where the most Americans reported themselves in the 2000 Census only as "American" with no further qualification (e.g. Kentucky, north-central Texas, and many other areas in the Southern US) are largely the areas where many Scots-Irish settled, and are in complementary distribution with the areas which most heavily report Scots-Irish ancestry.

According to the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, 400,000 people in the U.S. were of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790 when the first U.S. Census counted 3,100,000 white Americans. According to the encyclopedia, half of these Irish Americans were descended from Ulster, and half from the other three provinces of Ireland.

[edit] Republicanism, rebellion and communal strife

Most of the 18th century saw a calming of sectarian tensions in Ulster. The economy of the province improved, as small producers exported linen and other goods. Belfast developed from a village into a bustling provincial town. However, this did not stop many thousands of Ulster people from emigrating to British North America in this period, where they became known as "Scots Irish" or "Scotch-Irish".

Political tensions resurfaced, albeit in a new form, towards the end of the 18th century. In the 1790s many Catholics and Presbyterians, in opposition to Anglican domination and inspired by the American and French revolutions joined together in the United Irishmen movement. This group (founded in Belfast) dedicated itself to founding a non-sectarian and independent Irish republic. The United Irishmen had particular strength in Belfast, Antrim and Down. Paradoxically however, this period also saw much sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants, principally members of the Church of Ireland (Anglicans, who practised the British state religion and had rights denied to both Presbyterians and Catholics), notably the "Battle of the Diamond" in 1795, a faction fight between the rival "Defenders" (Catholic) and "Peep O'Day Boys" (Anglican), which led to over 100 deaths and to the founding of the Orange Order. This event, and many others like it, came about with the relaxation of the Penal Laws and Catholics began to be allowed to purchase land and involve themselves in the linen trade (activities which previously had involved many onerous restrictions). Protestants, including some Presbyterians, who in some parts of the province had come to identify with the Catholic community, used violence to intimidate Catholics who tried to enter the linen trade. Estimates suggest that up to 7000 Catholics suffered expulsion from Ulster during this violence. Many of them settled in northern Connacht. These refugees' linguistic influence still survives in the dialects of Irish spoken in Mayo, which have many similarities to Ulster Irish not found elsewhere in Connacht. Loyalist militias, primarily Anglicans, also used violence against the United Irishmen and against Catholic and Protestant republicans throughout the province.

In 1798 the United Irishmen, led by Henry Joy McCracken, launched a rebellion in Ulster, mostly supported by Presbyterians. But the British authorities swiftly put down the rebellion and employed severe repression after the fighting had ended. In the wake of the failure of this rebellion, and following the gradual abolition of official religious discrimination after the Act of Union in 1800, Presbyterians came to identify more with the State and with their Anglican neighbors, due to their civil rights now being respected by both the state and their Anglican Neighbors.

[edit] Industrialisation, Home Rule and partition

In the 19th century, Ulster became the most prosperous province in Ireland, with the only large-scale industrialisation in the country. In the latter part of the century, Belfast overtook Dublin as the largest city on the island. Belfast became famous in this period for its huge dockyards and shipbuilding — and notably for the construction of the RMS Titanic. In the 19th century, sectarian divisions in Ulster became hardened into the political categories of unionist (supporters of the Union with Britain; mostly, but not exclusively, Protestant) and nationalist (advocates of the Repeal of the Bill of Union 1900 ; usually, though not exclusively, Catholic). The origins of Northern Ireland's current politics lie in these late 19th century disputes over Home Rule which would have devolved some powers of government to Ireland, and which Ulster Protestants usually opposed—fearing for their religious rights calling it "Rome Rule" in an autonomous Catholic-dominated Ireland and also not trusting politicians from the agrarian south and west to support the more industrial economy of Ulster.

To resist Home Rule, thousands of unionists, led by the Dublin-born barrister Sir Edward Carson and James Craig, signed the "Ulster Covenant" of 1912, pledging to resist Home Rule. This movement also saw the setting up of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). In April 1914 30,000 German rifles with 3,000,000 rounds were landed at Larne, with the authorities blockaded by the UVF (see Larne gunrunning). The Curragh Incident showed it would be difficult to use the British army to enforce home rule from Dublin on Ulster's unionist minority.

In response, Irish nationalists created the Irish Volunteers, part of which later became the forerunner of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) — to seek to ensure the passing of the Home Rule Bill.

The outbreak of the Great War in 1914, in which thousands of Ulstermen and Irishmen of all religions and sects volunteered and died, interrupted this armed stand-off. In particular, the heavy casualties of the 36th (Ulster) Division (largely composed of volunteers from the UVF) became a source both of mourning and of pride for the loyalist community, and remains so to the present day.

In the aftermath of the War, Ireland saw several years of political violence, with Irish nationalists launching a guerrilla campaign against British rule as part of the Anglo-Irish War (January 1919–July 1921). In Ulster, the fighting generally took the form of street battles between Protestants and Catholics in the city of Belfast. Estimates suggest that about 600 civilians died in this communal violence, the majority of them (58%) Catholics. The IRA remained relatively quiescent in Ulster, with the exception of the south Armagh area, where Frank Aiken led it. A lot of IRA activity also took place at this time in County Donegal and the City of Derry, where one of the main Republican leaders was Peadar O'Donnell. Hugh O'Doherty, a Sinn Féin politician, was elected mayor of Derry at this time. In the First Dáil, which was elected in late 1918, Prof. Eoin Mac Néill served as the Sinn Féin T.D. for Derry city.

Partition of Ireland, first mooted in 1912, was introduced with the enactment of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, which gave self-government to six of Ulster's north-eastern counties within the UK. This was confirmed by the Anglo-Irish Treaty (6 December 1921) which ended in the partition of Ireland between the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland. Hostilities formally ceased on July 11, 1921. Low-level violence, however, continued in Ulster, causing Michael Collins to order a boycott of Northern products in protest at attacks on the Catholic/Nationalist community. When the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, the Northern Ireland Parliament (already in existence) was given the option to 'opt out', which it did. For the subsequent general history of Ulster see History of Northern Ireland and History of the Republic of Ireland.

[edit] Current politics

Electorally, voting in the six Northern Ireland counties of Ulster tends to follow religious or sectarian lines; noticeable religious demarcation does not exist in the South Ulster counties of Cavan and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. Some religious tensions remain in County Donegal (Ulster's largest county), especially in the Laggan Valley and Finn Valley in the east of that county.^{[citation needed]} County Donegal is largely a Catholic county, but with a large Protestant minority. Generally, Protestants in Donegal vote for Fine Gael.^[19] However, religious sectarianism in politics has largely disappeared from the rest of the Republic of Ireland. This was illustrated when Erskine H. Childers, a Church of Ireland member and Teachta Dála (TD, a member of the lower house of the National Parliament) who had represented Monaghan, won election as President after having served as a long-term minister under Fianna Fáil Taoisigh Éamon de Valera, Seán Lemass and Jack Lynch. Upon the Partition of Ireland in the very early 1920s, however, many Protestants from throughout the new Irish Free State (later called the Republic of Ireland) moved to Northern Ireland.

While the Protestant 'bloc vote' continues to exist in County Donegal, especially in the east of the county, where the Orange Order is relatively strong amongst the Protestant community, sectarian politics and sectarian feeling in County Donegal has begun to decline since the Good Friday Agreement (G.F.A.) in April 1998^{[citation needed]}.

The Orange Order freely organises in counties Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, with several Orange parades taking place throughout County Donegal each year. The largest Orange march in the Republic of Ireland takes place every July in the tiny village of Rossnowlagh, near Ballyshannon, in the very south of County Donegal. This march — like the other such marches in the county — takes place with the co-operation of An Garda Síochána (the national police force of the Republic) and a rather ambivalent local Catholic community. The Catholic community of Rossnowlagh is often commended for the dignified way in which it deals with this annual 'Orange invasion'.^{[citation needed]}

As of 2006^[update], Northern Ireland has eight Catholic Members of Parliament (of a total of 18 from the whole of Northern Ireland) in the British House of Commons at Westminster; and the other three counties have one Protestant T.D. of the ten it has elected to Dáil Éireann, the Lower House of the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland. At present (August 2007) County Donegal sends six T.D.'s to Dáil Éireann. The county is divided into two constituencies: Donegal North-East and Donegal South-West, each with three T.D.'s. County Cavan and County Monaghan form the one constituency called Cavan-Monaghan, which sends four T.D.'s to the Dáil (one of whom is a Protestant). The Republic's parties have long ceased to base their selection of candidates purely on any religious criteria. For most of the twentieth century they chose at least one candidate from a Protestant background to attract the Protestant vote, but the disappearance of a bloc 'Protestant vote' (except in County Donegal) voting exclusively for a candidate on the basis of religion (with Protestant voters instead voting primarily for local candidates irrespective of religion) means that selection now depends largely on considerations of geography when electing TDs to Dáil Éireann under its Proportional Representation system. Again, County Donegal differs here in that a Protestant 'bloc vote' continues, especially in the east of the county.^{[citation needed]}

The historic Flag of Ulster served as the basis for the Ulster Banner (often referred to as the Flag of Northern Ireland), which was the flag of the Government of Northern Ireland until the proroguing of the Stormont parliament in 1973.

[edit] Sport

In Gaelic games (which include Gaelic football and hurling), Ulster counties play the Ulster Senior Football Championship and Ulster Senior Hurling Championship. In football, the main competitions in which they compete with the other Irish counties are the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and National Football League, while the Ulster club champions represent the province in the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship. Hurling teams play in the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, National Hurling League and All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship. The whole province fields a team to play the other provinces in the Railway Cup in both football and hurling. Gaelic Football is by far the most popular of the GAA sports in Ulster but hurling is also played, especially in Antrim, Armagh, Derry, and Down.

The border has divided association football teams since 1921.^[20] The Irish Football Association oversees the sport in NI while the Football Association of Ireland oversees the sport in the Republic. As a result, separate international teams are fielded and separate championships take place (Irish Football League in Northern Ireland, League of Ireland in the rest of Ulster and Ireland). Anomalously, Derry City F.C. has played in the League of Ireland since 1985 due to crowd trouble at some of their Irish League matches prior to this. The other major Ulster team in the League of Ireland is Finn Harps of Ballybofey, County Donegal. There have been cup competitions between FAI and IFA clubs, most recently the Setanta Sports Cup.

In Rugby union, the Ulster branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union (I.R.F.U.) plays in the professional Magners League, along with teams from Wales, Scotland, Italy and the other Irish Provinces (Leinster, Munster and Connacht). Notable Ulster rugby players include Willy John McBride, Jack Kyle and Mike Gibson. The former is the most capped British and Irish Lion of all time, having completed four tours with the Lions in the sixties and seventies.

Cricket is also played in Ulster, especially in Northern Ireland and East Donegal. The game is mainly played and followed by members of the Protestant community.^[21]

[edit] References noted

[edit] General references

The Ulster Countryside. Deane, C.Douglas. 1983. Century Books. ISBN 0 903152 17 7

[edit] Further reading

• Morton, O. 1994. Marine Algae of Northern Ireland. Ulster Museum, Belfast. ISBN 0900761 28 8
• Stewart and Corry's Flora of the North-east of Ireland. Third edition. Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast

[edit] See also

• Ulster nationalism
• Northern Ireland
• Kings of Ulster
• Provinces of Ireland
• Ulster Scots dialects
• Ulster-Scots people
• Mid Ulster English
• Ulster Irish
• Plantation of Ulster
• Plantations of Ireland
• Ulster Covenant
• Culture of Ulster
• Ulster GAA
• Ulster Rugby

[edit] External links

• BBC Nations History of Ireland
• Inconvenient Peripheries: Ethnic Identity and the United Kingdom EstatePDF (96.8 KiB) The cases of “Protestant Ulster” and Cornwall, by Professor Philip Payton
• Mercator Atlas of Europe Map of Ireland ("Irlandia") circa 1564
• Placenames Database of Ireland developed by Fiontar

• Media related to Ulster at Wikimedia Commons
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Ulster". Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

v · d · eCounties of Ireland The counties are listed per province Connacht Galway (Galway City) · Leitrim · Mayo · Roscommon · Sligo Munster Clare · Cork (Cork City) · Kerry · Limerick (Limerick City) · Tipperary (North Tipperary • South Tipperary) · Waterford (Waterford City) Leinster Carlow · Dublin (Dublin City • Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown • Fingal • South Dublin) · Kildare · Kilkenny · Laois · Longford · Louth · Meath · Offaly · Westmeath · Wexford · Wicklow Ulster Antrim† · Armagh† · Cavan · Fermanagh† · Londonderry† · Donegal · Down† · Monaghan · Tyrone† Italics denote non-administrative counties. Brackets denote eponymous cities or non-traditional counties. † denotes counties of Northern Ireland