- For other places and things named Ulster, see Ulster (disambiguation).
| Ulster |
 |
| Statistics |
| Area: |
24,481 km² |
| Population: |
1,931,981 (estimate) |
| Map |
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Ulster (Irish: Uladh) is one of the four provinces on the island of Ireland.
Geography & demographics
It has a population of just under 2 million people and an area of 24,481
square kilometres (8,952 square miles). Its biggest city is Belfast (Béal Feirste). Since 1922, six of its nine counties, Antrim (Aontroim), Armagh (Ard Mhacha), Down (An Dún),
Fermanagh (Fear Manach), Londonderry (Doire) and Tyrone (Tír
Eoghain), are known collectively as Northern Ireland, and are
part of the United Kingdom.
Some people in the Unionist community refer to
Northern Ireland as "Ulster". However Nationalists do not accept
such an equation, given that three counties in Ulster, Cavan (An
Cabhán), Donegal (Dún na nGall/Tír Chonaill) and
Monaghan (Muineachán) are part of the Republic of Ireland. About half of Ulster's population live in Antrim
and Down.
English is spoken by virtually everyone in Ulster, apart from a
few immigrants living in the province, and a handful of monoglots in the Donegal Gaeltacht. Irish is probably the second most widely-spoken language, though this is hard to
verify as many people claim fluency while having only a basic working knowledge of
the language. Cantonese is the third most common mostly due to the considerable
Chinese community of Belfast, the province's
largest city. Belfast has more Chinese restaurants per capita than any other European city.
The biggest lake in Ireland (or Britain), Lough Neagh, is in eastern Ulster. Its highest point is Slieve Donard, in Down (848 metres). The most northerly
point of Ireland, Malin Head, is in Donegal. The second highest sea cliffs in Europe,
at Slieve League, are also in this county. The biggest river in Ireland, the Shannon, rises in Cavan. 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 is near the village of Pomeroy, in Tyrone.
History & politics
In the 1600s Ulster functioned as the last redoubt of the traditional Gaelic way of
life, and following the defeat of the Irish forces at the battles of Kinsale (1601),
Mountjoy and Dunboy Castle, Elizabeth I
succeeded in subjugating Ulster and all of Ireland. The Gaelic kings of Ulster, the
O'Neills, decamped en masse in 1607 to Catholic Europe, finding their power
under English suzerainty limited. This allowed the Crown to settle
Ulster with more loyal English and Scottish planters, which began in earnest in 1610. What became known as the Plantation of Ulster continued well into the 18th century, interrupted only by the Catholic uprising of 1641. Thousands of Protestants were slaughtered by dispossessed Catholics, an
event which remains strong in Ulster Protestant folk memory. In 1922 most of Ulster became part of Northern Ireland and remained in the United Kingdom, whilst the rest became part of the Irish Free State.
While the Ulster Catholics of Northern Ireland have long opposed Northern Ireland's existence, the Ulster Protestants of the
three Free State counties have assimilated well, although some sectarian tension remains. Seven of Northern Ireland's eighteen
MPs are Catholic, while one of Ulster's ten TDs is Protestant.
The flag of Ulster, shown to the right, was the basis for the official flag of Northern Ireland , which was abolished in 1973.
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