Ulster (redirected from Province of Ulster)

Ulster, northernmost of the historic provinces of Ireland. Modern Ulster consists of nine counties. Six (Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Derry, and Tyrone) now make up Northern Ireland (see Ireland, Northern), which is often referred to as Ulster; the remaining three (Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan) are in the Republic of Ireland.

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Ulster

Historical province, northern Ireland. It now forms Northern Ireland and Ulster province of Ireland. The ancient province was home to the Roman Catholic O'Neills (earls of Tyrone), who rebelled against English rule c. 1600. After they fled, most of the land was confiscated by British King James I and settled with Protestant Scots, Welsh, and English. It was further colonized after Cromwellian settlement in the mid-17th century. In the early 20th century its opposition to Irish Home Rule led to the formation of Northern Ireland.

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Ulster

1. a province and former kingdom of N Ireland: passed to the English Crown in 1461; confiscated land given to English and Scottish Protestant settlers in the 17th century, giving rise to serious long-term conflict; partitioned in 1921, six counties forming Northern Ireland and three counties joining the Republic of Ireland. Pop. (three Ulster counties of the Republic of Ireland): 46 714 (2002); (six Ulster counties of Northern Ireland): 1 702 628 (2003 est.). Area (Republic of Ireland): 8013 sq. km (3094 sq. miles); (Northern Ireland): 14 121 sq. km (5452 sq. miles)

2. an informal name for Northern Ireland

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Ulster 

a province of the Irish Republic, on the Atlantic coast. Population, 206,900 (1971). Ulster is part of the historic region of Ulster and comprises the counties of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan. It is 8,000 sq km in area. Ulster is an agrarian region of predominantly small landholdings with a sizable number of prosperous farmers. Farmers are mainly engaged in commercial dairy husbandry. Sheep are raised in mountain pastures. Barley, oats, flax, and fodder crops are grown. Industry is small, represented by textile, knitwear, and garment enterprises. Fishing and tourism are also important.

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Ulster 

(1) A historic region in northern Ireland. Ulster was an independent kingdom in the early Middle Ages. After the invasion of Ireland by Anglo-Norman feudal lords (1169–71), Ulster was formally declared subject to the English crown but was in fact obedient to clan chiefs. When the English extended their rule over the entire island in the 16th century, Ulster became one of four provinces of Ireland. It was a hotbed of anticolonialist uprisings in the 16th to 18th centuries.

As capitalism progressed, Ulster proved to be more developed industrially than the rest of Ireland, with a particularly strong shipbuilding industry, which was located in Belfast, the principal city of Ulster. On the eve of World War I (1914–18), British Conservatives, taking advantage of national and religious antagonisms between Catholics and Protestants, turned Ulster into a bulwark for the struggle against Irish autonomy, or Home Rule, and the base of the separatist movement of the Unionists, who wished to preserve the Anglo-Irish union established in 1801. According to the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921, the greater part of Ulster (the six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Londonderry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh) remained subject to Great Britain (Northern Ireland), and the counties of Donegal, Monaghan, and Cavan formed the provice of Ulster in the Irish Free State (since 1949 the Irish Republic).

(2) The press someties applies the name “Ulster” to the six counties of Ireland included in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, amid reprisals by the army and police and terrorist actions by right-wing extremist elements, a broad democratic movement in defense of the civil rights of the Catholic minority became widespread in these counties. In 1969 the British government sent regular troops to Northern Ireland under the pretext of preserving order, and in 1972 it established direct rule of Northern Ireland from London. In accordance with the establishment of direct rule, the Parliament and government of Northern Ireland were dissolved, and the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland was given unlimited powers. Participants in the civil rights movement have been cruelly suppressed.

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See under .

L. I. GOL’MAN