b.^ The counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal are part of theMidlands–North-West constituency (4 MEPs); these three counties contain 19.5% of the population of the constituency.[5] FollowingBrexit, as the United Kingdom left the EU, there are no MEPs from Northern Ireland.
It is the second-largest (afterMunster) and second-most populous (afterLeinster) of Ireland's four traditional provinces, withBelfast being its biggest city. Unlike the other provinces, Ulster has a high percentage ofProtestants, making up almost half of its population. English is the main language andUlster English the main dialect. A minority also speak Irish, and there areGaeltachtaí (Irish-speaking regions) inCounty Donegal which is home to a quarter of the total Gaeltacht population of the Republic of Ireland.[12] There are also large Irish-speaking networks in southernCounty Londonderry and in theGaeltacht Quarter, Belfast.Ulster-Scots is also spoken extensively in Counties Antrim, Down, Londonderry, Tyrone and Donegal.Lough Neagh, in the east, is the largest lake in theBritish Isles, whileLough Erne in the west is one of its largest lake networks. The main mountain ranges are theMournes,Sperrins,Croaghgorms andDerryveagh Mountains.
Historically, Ulster lay at the heart of theGaelic world made up ofGaelic Ireland,Scotland and theIsle of Man. According to tradition, inancient Ireland it was one of thefifths (Irish:cúige) ruled by arí ruirech, or 'king of over-kings'. It is named after the overkingdom ofUlaid, in the east of the province, which was in turn named after the Ulaid folk. The other overkingdoms in Ulster wereAirgíalla andAilech. After theNorman invasion of Ireland in the twelfth century, eastern Ulster was conquered by theAnglo-Normans and became theEarldom of Ulster. By the late fourteenth century the Earldom had collapsed and theO'Neill dynasty had come to dominate most of Ulster, claiming the titleKing of Ulster. Ulster became the most thoroughly Gaelic and independent of Ireland's provinces. Its rulers resistedEnglish encroachment but were defeated in theNine Years' War (1594–1603). KingJames I then colonised Ulster with English-speaking Protestant settlers from Great Britain, in thePlantation of Ulster. This led to the founding of many of Ulster's towns. The inflow of Protestant settlers and migrants also led to bouts ofsectarian violence with Catholics, notably during the1641 rebellion and theArmagh disturbances.
The termUlster has no official function for local government purposes in either state. However, for the purposes ofISO 3166-2:IE,Ulster is used to refer to the three counties of Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan only, which are given country sub-division code "IE-U".[14] The name is also used by various organisations such as cultural and sporting bodies.
Ulster's name ultimately derives from theUlaidh, a group of tribes that once dwelt in this part of Ireland. The Norsemen knew the province asUlaztir, thetír or 'land' (a word borrowed from Irish) of theUlaidh;[15] this was then taken into English asUllister orUlvester, and later contracted toUlster.[16] Another, less probable explanation is that the suffix -ster represents the Old Norse elementstaðr ('place'), found in names likeLybster andScrabster in Scotland.[15]
Ulster is still known asCúige Uladh in Irish, meaning the province (literally 'fifth') of theUlaidh.Ulaidh has historically been anglicised asUlagh orUllagh[17] and Latinised asUlidia orUltonia.[18] The latter two have yielded the termsUlidian andUltonian. The Irish word for someone or something from Ulster isUltach, and this can be found in the surnames MacNulty, MacAnulty, and Nulty, which all derive fromMac an Ultaigh, meaning 'son of the Ulsterman'.[19]
Northern Ireland is often referred to asUlster,[20] despite including only six of Ulster's nine counties. This usage is most common among people in Northern Ireland who areunionist,[21] although it is also used by the media throughout the United Kingdom.[22][23] SomeIrish nationalists object to the use of Ulster in this context.[21]
Ulster (coloured), showing Northern Ireland in pink and the Republic of Ireland part in green
Ulster has a population of just over two million people and an area of 22,067 square kilometres (8,520 sq mi). About 62% of the area of Ulster is in the UK while the remaining 38% is in the Republic of Ireland. Ulster's biggest city,Belfast, has an urban population of over half a million inhabitants, making it thesecond-largest city on the island of Ireland and the10th largest urban area in the UK. Six of Ulster's ninecounties,Antrim,Armagh,Down,Fermanagh,Londonderry andTyrone, including the former parliamentary boroughs ofBelfast andLondonderry, formNorthern Ireland which remained part of the United Kingdom after thepartition of Ireland in 1921. Three Ulster counties –Cavan,Donegal andMonaghan – form part of theRepublic of Ireland. About half of Ulster's population lives in counties Antrim and Down. Across the nine counties, according to the aggregate UK2011 Census for Northern Ireland, and the ROI 2011 Census for counties Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan, there is aRoman Catholic majority overProtestant of 50.8% to 42.7%.[24]
The biggest lake in theBritish Isles,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 in Ireland,Malin Head, is in County Donegal, as are the sixth-highest (601 metres (1,972 ft)) seacliffs in Europe, atSlieve League, and the province's largest island,Arranmore. The most easterly point in Ireland is also in Ulster, inCounty Down, and the most westerly point in the UK is inCounty Fermanagh. The longest river in the British Isles, theShannon, rises at theShannon Pot in County Cavan with underground tributaries from County Fermanagh.Volcanic activity in eastern Ulster led to the formation of theAntrim Plateau and theGiant's Causeway, one of Ireland's threeUNESCOWorld Heritage Sites. Ulster also has a significantdrumlin belt. The geographical centre of Ulster lies between the villages ofPomeroy andCarrickmore in County Tyrone. In terms of area, County Donegal is the largest county in all of Ulster.
Only five Irish counties, all in Southern and Western Ulster, currently have no mainline railway. The historicGreat Northern Railway of Ireland connected them. They are Cavan, Monaghan, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Donegal. A plan to re-linkSligo and Derry through Donegal has been postponed until at least 2030.[26]
Most people in Ulster speak English. English is taught in all schools in the province;Irish (Gaeilge) is taught in all schools in the counties that are part of the Republic, and in schools in Northern Ireland, almost exclusively in the Roman Catholic and Irish-medium sectors. In responses to the 2001 census in Northern Ireland 10% of the population had "some knowledge of Irish"[27] and 4.7% could "speak, read, write and understand" Irish.[27] Large parts ofCounty Donegal areGaeltacht areas whereIrish is the first language and some people in west Belfast also speak Irish, especially in the "Gaeltacht Quarter".[28] The dialect of Irish most commonly spoken in Ulster (especially throughout Northern Ireland and County Donegal) isGaeilge Thír Chonaill or Donegal Irish, also known asGaeilge Uladh orUlster Irish. Donegal Irish has many similarities toScottish Gaelic.Polish is the third most common language.Ulster Scots dialects, sometimes known by theneologismUllans, are also spoken in Counties Down, Antrim, Londonderry and Donegal.[29]
The province's early story extends further back than written records and survives mainly in legends such as theUlster Cycle.Thearchaeology of Ulster, formerly called Ulandia, gives examples of "ritual enclosures", such as theGiant's Ring near Belfast, which is an earth bank about 590 feet (180 m) in diameter and 15 feet (4.5 m) high, in the centre of which there is adolmen.[30]
The Boyne and its tributary the Blackwater were the traditional southern boundary of the province of Ulster and appear as such in theTáin Bó Cúailnge. According to historian Francis John Byrne theUlaid 'possibly still ruled directly inLouth as far as the Boyne in the early seventh century'[31] whenCongal Cáech made a bid for thekingship of Tara. In 637, theBattle of Moira, known archaically as the Battle of Magh Rath, was fought by the Gaelic High King of Ireland Domhnall II against his foster son King Congal Cáech of Ulster, supported by his ally Domhnall the Freckled (Irish:Domhnall Brecc) ofDalriada. The battle was fought near the Woods of Killultagh, just outside the village of Moira in what would become County Down. It was allegedly the largest battle ever fought on the island of Ireland, and resulted in the death of Congal and the retreat of Domhnall Brecc.
In early medieval Ireland, a branch of theNorthern Uí Néill, theCenél nEógain of the province ofAilech, gradually eroded the territory of the province of Ulaidh until it lay east of theRiver Bann. TheCenél nEógain would makeTír Eóghain (most of which forms modernCounty Tyrone) their base. Among theHigh Kings of Ireland wereÁed Findliath (died 879),Niall Glúndub (died 919), andDomnall ua Néill (died 980), all of the Cenél nEógain. The province of Ulaidh would survive restricted to the east of modern Ulster until the Norman invasion in the late 12th century. It would only once more become a province of Ireland in the mid-14th century after the collapse of the NormanEarldom of Ulster, when theO'Neills who had come to dominate the Northern Uí Néill stepped into the power vacuum and staked a claim for the first time the title of "king of Ulster" along with the Red Hand of Ulster symbol. It was then that the provinces of Ailech, Airgialla, and Ulaidh would all merge largely into what would become the modern province of Ulster.
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 overTír Chonaill (most of modern County Donegal) in West Ulster.
After theNorman invasion of Ireland in the twelfth century, the east of the province fell by conquest to Norman barons, firstDe Courcy (died 1219), thenHugh de Lacy (1176–1243), who founded theEarldom of Ulster based on the modern counties of Antrim and Down.
In the 1600s Ulster was the last redoubt of the traditionalGaelic way of life, and following the defeat of the Irish forces in theNine Years War (1594–1603) at thebattle of Kinsale (1601),Elizabeth I's English forces succeeded in subjugating Ulster and all of Ireland.
ThePlantation of Ulster (Irish:Plandáil Uladh) was the organisedcolonisation (orplantation) of Ulster by people from Great Britain (especiallyPresbyterians fromScotland). Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606,[32][33][34] while the official plantation controlled byKing James I of England (who was also King James VI of Scots) began in 1609. All land owned by Irish chieftains, theÓ Neills andÓ Donnells (along with those of their supporters), who fought against theEnglish Crown in theNine Years War, were confiscated and used to settle the colonists. The CountiesTyrconnell,Tyrone,Fermanagh,Cavan,Coleraine andArmagh comprised the official Colony.[35] However, most of the counties, including the most heavily colonised CountiesAntrim andDown, were privately colonised.[32][33][34] These counties, though not officially designated as subject toPlantation, had suffered violent depopulation during the previous wars and proved attractive to PrivateColonialists from nearby Britain. The efforts to attract colonists from England and Scotland to the Ulster Plantation were considerably affected by the existence of British colonies in the Americas, which served as a more attractive destination for many potential emigrants.[36]
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.[38]
The Plantation of Ulster continued well into the 18th century, interrupted only by theIrish Rebellion of 1641. This Rebellion was initially led bySir Phelim O'Neill (Irish:Sir Féilim Ó Néill), and was intended to overthrow British rule rapidly, but quickly degenerated into attacks on colonists, in which dispossessed Irish slaughtered thousands of the colonists. In the ensuingwars (1641–1653, fought against the background ofcivil war in England, Scotland and Ireland), Ulster became a battleground between the Colonialists and the native Irish. In 1646, an Irish army under command byOwen Roe O'Neill (Irish:Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill) inflicted a defeat on a ScottishCovenanter army atBenburb 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 theBattle of Scarrifholis, near Newmills on the western outskirts ofLetterkenny,County Donegal, in 1650, as part of theCromwellian conquest of Ireland conducted byOliver Cromwell and theNew Model Army, the aim of which was to expel all native Irish to the province ofConnaught.[39]
The majority of Irish people were "Jacobites" and supported James II due to his 1687Declaration of Indulgence or, as it is also known, The Declaration for the Liberty of Conscience, that granted religious freedom to all denominations in England and Scotland and also due to James II's promise to the Irish Parliament of an eventual right toself-determination.[40][41] However, James II was deposed in theGlorious Revolution, and the majority of UlsterColonialists (Williamites) backedWilliam of Orange. Both the Williamite and Jacobite armies were religiously mixed; William of Orange's own elite forces, theDutch Blue Guards had a papal banner with them during the invasion, many of them being Dutch Roman Catholics.[42]
At the start of the war, Irish Jacobites controlled most of Ireland for James II, with the exception of the Williamite strongholds atDerry and atEnniskillen in Ulster. The Jacobitesbesieged 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 thebattle of Newtownbutler on 28 July 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 Protestantloyalists with the iconic victories of theSiege of Derry, theBattle of the Boyne (1 July 1690) and theBattle of Aughrim (12 July 1691), all of which theOrange Order commemorate each year.
The Williamites' victory in this war ensuredBritish rule in Ireland for over 200 years. TheProtestant Ascendancy in Ireland excluded most of Ulster's population from having any Civilpower on religious grounds.Roman Catholics (descended from the indigenous Irish) andPresbyterians (mainly descended from Scottish colonists) both suffered discrimination under thePenal Laws, which gave full political rights only toAnglican 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.
Considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots (who became commonly known as "Scots-Irish" in America) emigrated to the North American 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 theAppalachian regions and theOhio Valley. Here they lived on the frontiers of America, carving their own world out of the wilderness. The Scots-Irish soon became the dominant culture of the Appalachians fromPennsylvania toGeorgia. Author (and US Senator)Jim Webb puts forth a thesis in his bookBorn 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 theUnited States Census, 2000, 4.3 million Americans claimed Scots-Irish ancestry. The areas where the most Americans reported themselves in the 2000 Census only as "American" with no further qualification (e.g.Kentucky, north-centralTexas, and many other areas in theSouthern 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 US were of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790 when the first US Census counted 3,100,000 white Americans. According to the encyclopaedia, half of these Irish Americans were descended from Ulster, and half from the other three provinces of Ireland.[43]
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 toBritish North America in this period, where they became known as "Scots Irish" or "Scotch-Irish".[citation needed]
Political tensions resurfaced, albeit in a new form, towards the end of the 18th century. In the 1790s many Roman Catholics andPresbyterians, in opposition toAnglican domination and inspired by the American and Frenchrevolutions joined in theUnited Irishmen movement. This group (founded in Belfast) dedicated itself to founding a non-sectarian and independent Irish republic. The United Irishmen had particular strength inBelfast,Antrim andDown. Paradoxically however, this period also saw much sectarian violence between Roman Catholics and Protestants, principally members of theChurch of Ireland (Anglicans, who practised the British state religion and had rights denied to both Presbyterians and Roman Catholics), notably the "Battle of the Diamond" in 1795, a faction fight between the rival "Defenders" (Roman Catholic) and "Peep O'Day Boys" (Anglican), which led to over 100 deaths and to the founding of theOrange Order. This event, and many others like it, came about with the relaxation of thePenal Laws and Roman 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 Roman Catholic community, used violence to intimidate Roman Catholics who tried to enter the linen trade. Estimates suggest that up to 7000 Roman Catholics suffered expulsion from Ulster during this violence. Many of them settled in northernConnacht. These refugees' linguistic influence still survives in the dialects of Irish spoken inCounty Mayo, which have many similarities toUlster Irish not found elsewhere in Connacht. Loyalist militias, primarilyAnglicans, also used violence against theUnited Irishmen and against Roman Catholic and Protestantrepublicans throughout the province.
In 1798 the United Irishmen, led byHenry 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 thisrebellion, and following the gradual abolition of official religious discrimination after theAct of Union in 1800,Presbyterians came to identify more with the State and with their Anglican neighbours, due to their civil rights now being respected by both the state and their Anglican neighbours.
In the 19th century, Ulster had the only large-scale industrialisation and became the most prosperous province on the island. In the latter part of the century,Belfast briefly overtookDublin as the island's largest city. Belfast became famous in this period for its hugedockyards andshipbuilding – and notably for the construction of theRMSTitanic.Sectarian divisions in Ulster became hardened into the political categories ofunionist (supporters of the Union with Britain; mostly, but not exclusively, Protestant) andnationalist (advocates of repeal of the 1800 Act of Union, usually, though not exclusively, Roman Catholic). Northern Ireland's current politics originate from these late 19th century disputes overHome Rule that would have devolved some powers of government to Ireland. At least a dozen large scale sectarian disturbances/riots occurred in Belfast during the 19th century.[44] Ulster Protestants usually opposed Home Rule — fearing for their religious rights calling it "Rome Rule" in an autonomous Roman Catholic-dominated Ireland and also not trusting politicians from the agrarian south and west to support the more industrial economy of Ulster. This lack of trust, however, was largely unfounded as during the 19th and early 20th century important industries in the southernmost region of Cork included brewing, distilling, wool and like Belfast, shipbuilding.[45]
The results of the1918 Irish general election, in which Sinn Féin and the Irish Parliamentary Party won the majority of votes on the island of Ireland, shown in the color green and light green respectively, with the exception being primarily in the East of the province of Ulster.
Thousands of unionists, led by the Dublin-born barristerSir Edward Carson andJames Craig, signed the "Ulster Covenant" of 1912 pledging to resist Home Rule. This movement also set up theUlster Volunteer Force (UVF). In April 1914, the UVF assisted with the landing of 30,000German rifles with 3,000,000 rounds atLarne by blockading authorities. (SeeLarne gunrunning). TheCurragh 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 republicans created theIrish Volunteers, part of which became the forerunner of theIrish Republican Army (IRA) – to seek to ensure the passing of theHome Rule Bill. Upon the outbreak ofWorld War I in 1914, 200,000 Irishmen, both Southern and Northern, of all religious sects volunteered to serve in theBritish Army. This had the effect of interrupting the armed stand-off in Ireland. As the war progressed, in Ireland, opposition to the War grew stronger, reaching its peak in 1918 when the British government proposed laws to extendconscription to all able bodied Irishmen during theConscription Crisis.
In the aftermath of World War I, the political partySinn Féin ("Ourselves") won the majority of votes in the1918 Irish general election, this political party pursued a policy of complete independent self-determination for the island of Ireland as outlined in theSinn Féin campaign Manifesto of 1918, a great deal more than the devolved government/Home Rule advocated by the (I.P.P)Irish Parliamentary Party. Following the Sinn Féin victory in these elections theIrish Declaration of Independence was penned andIrish republicans launched a guerrilla campaign against British rule in what became theIrish War of Independence (January 1919 – July 1921). The fighting in Ulster during the Irish War of Independence generally took the form of street battles between Protestants and Roman Catholics in the city of Belfast. Estimates suggest that about 600 civilians died in this communal violence, the majority of them (58%) Roman Catholics (seeThe Troubles (1920–1922)). The IRA remained relatively quiescent in Ulster, with the exception of the southArmagh area, whereFrank Aiken led it. A lot of IRA activity also took place at this time inCounty Donegal and the City ofDerry, where one of the main Republican leaders wasPeadar O'Donnell. Hugh O'Doherty, aSinn Féin politician, was elected mayor of Derry at this time. In theFirst Dáil, which was elected in late 1918,Eoin Mac Néill served as the Sinn Féin T.D. forLondonderry City.
Partition of Ireland, first mooted in 1912, was introduced with the enactment of theGovernment of Ireland Act 1920, which gave a form of "Home rule" self-government to two areas,Southern Ireland, with its capital atDublin, and "Northern Ireland", consisting of six of Ulster's central and eastern counties, both within a continuingUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Dissatisfaction with this led to theIrish War of Independence, which formally ceased on 11 July 1921. Low-level violence, however, continued in Ulster, causingMichael Collins in the south to order a boycott of Northern products in protest at attacks on the Nationalist community there. The Partition was effectively confirmed by theAnglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921. One of the primary stipulations of the treaty was the transformation of Ireland into a self-governing Britishdominion called theIrish Free State (which later became the sovereignRepublic of Ireland), but with the option of a continuation of the home rule institution of Northern Ireland, still within the United Kingdom, if the Northern Ireland Parliament (already in existence) chose to opt out of the Irish Free State. All parties knew that this was certain to be the choice of the Ulster Unionists who had a majority in the parliament, and immediately on the creation of the Free State they resolved to leave it.
Following the Anglo Irish treaty, the exact border between the new dominion of the Irish Free State and the futureNorthern Ireland, if it chose to opt out, was to be decided by theIrish Boundary Commission. This did not announce its findings until 1925, when the line was again drawn around six of Ulster's nine counties, with no change from the partition of 1920.
Electorally, voting in the sixNorthern 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 theRepublic of Ireland. County Donegal is largely a Roman Catholic county, but with a largeProtestant minority. Generally, Protestants in Donegal vote for the political partyFine Gael ("Family of the Irish").[46] However, religious sectarianism in politics has largely disappeared from the rest of the Republic of Ireland. This was illustrated whenErskine H. Childers, aChurch of Ireland member andTeachta Dála (TD, a member of the lower house of the National Parliament) who had represented Monaghan, won election asPresident after having served as a long-term minister underFianna FáilTaoisighÉamon de Valera,Seán Lemass andJack Lynch.
TheOrange Order freely organises in counties Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, with several Orange parades taking place throughout County Donegal each year. The only major Orange Order march in theRepublic of Ireland takes place every July in the village ofRossnowlagh, nearBallyshannon, in the south of County Donegal.
As of 2017[update], Northern Ireland has seven Roman Catholic members of parliament, all members of Sinn Féin (of a total of 18 from the whole of Northern Ireland) in theBritish House of Commons atWestminster; and the other three counties have one Protestant T.D. of the ten it has elected toDáil 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 five T.D.'s to the Dáil (one of whom is a Protestant).
The border has divided association football teams since 1921.[49] TheIrish Football Association (the I.F.A.) oversees the sport in N.I., while theFootball Association of Ireland (the F.A.I.) 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 isFinn Harps ofBallybofey, County Donegal. When Derry City F.C. and Finn Harps play against each other, the game is usually referred to as a 'North-West Derby'. There have been cup competitions between I.F.A. and F.A.I. clubs, most recently theSetanta Sports Cup.
InRugby union, the professional rugby team representing the province and theIRFU Ulster Branch,Ulster Rugby, compete in theUnited Rugby Championship along with teams fromWales,Scotland, Italy, South Africa and the other Irish Provinces (Leinster,Munster andConnacht). They also compete in Europe's main club rugby tournament, the European Rugby Champions Cup, which they won (as the Heineken Cup) back in 1999. Notable Ulster rugby players include Willy John McBride,Jack Kyle andMike Gibson. The former is the most cappedBritish and Irish Lion of all time, having completed four tours with the Lions in the sixties and seventies. At international level players from Ulster join with those from the other 3 provinces to form the island-wide Ireland team.
Golf is, however, by far the most high-profile sport and the sport that Ulster has succeeded at more than any other. Ulster has produced many great players over the years, fromFred Daly winning The Open Championship in 1947 at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake to most recentlyRory McIlroy winning the US Open andDarren Clarke winning The Open Championship in 2011. Ulster also has another Major winner inGraeme McDowell, who also won the US Open in 2010. The Open Championship returned to Ulster, after 68 years, in 2019 atRoyal Portrush Golf Club.
In horse racing, specifically National Hunt, Ulster has produced the most dominant jockey of all time,Tony McCoy.
^Challoner, Richard.A Memorial of Ancient British Piety: or, a British Martyrology,p. 128Archived 29 February 2020 at theWayback Machine. W. Needham, 1761. Accessed 14 March 2013.
^abFalls, Cyril (1996).The Birth of Ulster. London: Constable and Company Ltd. pp. 156–157.ISBN978-0-09-476610-5.
^abPerceval-Maxwell, M. (1999).The Scottish Migration to Ulster in the Reign of James I. Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation. p. 89.ISBN978-0-901905-44-4.
^Davies, John (1890). Morley, Henry (ed.).A Discovery of the True Cause Why Ireland Was Never Entirely Subdued Nor Brought Under Obedience of the Crown of England Until the Beginning of His Majesty's Happy Reign. London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd. pp. 218–219.
^Harris, Tim (2006).Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720. London: Allen Lane. p. 440.ISBN978-0-7139-9759-0.
^Magennis, Eoin (1998). "A 'Beleaguered Protestant'?: Walter Harris and the Writing ofFiction Unmasked in Mid-18th-Century Ireland".Eighteenth-Century Ireland.13:6–111.doi:10.3828/eci.1998.8.JSTOR30064327.S2CID256129781.
^Deane, C.D. 1983.The Ulster Countryside. p.81 Century Books
^Hackney, P. (ed)Stewart and Corry's Flora of the North- east of Ireland. Third edition. Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast.p.3 – 10ISBN0-85389-446-9
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