Ulster

Ulster (Lat. Ultonia), the most northern of the four provinces of Ireland, is divided into nine counties—Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone, each of which is separately described. Ulster seems to have formed one of the most ancient divisions of Ireland, and was the seat of the Hy-Nialls or O'Neills, as well as of the lesser septs of O'Donnell, O'Cahan, O'Doherty, Maguire, Mac-Mahon, &c. The north-eastern portion, now the county of Down, was early overrun by John de Courcy, and subsequently by Hugh de Lacy, and was the most permanent seat of English power in the north; but although various efforts were made by the English to effect a permanent settlement in the north and north-west, the success was but nominal until the reigns of Elizabeth and of James I., when the plantation of Ulster was effected (see IRELAND, Vol. VI. pp. 204, 205). Of this gigantic scheme of colonisation the chief seat was the county of Londonderry (q.v.). The Scottish element has long been dominant in some parts of Ulster, especially the north-east, but is very unequally distributed. The originally English and Scottish element varies from 75 per cent. in Antrim to about 20 in Cavan. Ulstermen had a very important share in extending the area of civilisation and culture in the United States. When about 1720 the great exodus of Irish Protestant Nonconformists began (100,000 are said to have crossed the Atlantic in ten years) the English settlements south of New England consisted of the strip of country east of the Alleghanies. Scoto-Irishmen formed the vanguard that penetrated beyond amongst the dreaded Indians, and were the main stock from which descended the backwoodsmen and fighting farmers who for fifty years bore the brunt of Indian warfare. In 1861 the whole population of Ulster was 1,914,236, the Roman Catholics numbering 966,613; in 1871 the total was, owing to emigration, 1,833,228, of whom the Catholics were only 897,230; of the total in 1881, 1,730,542, the Catholics were 833,566; and in 1891, of a total of 1,617,877, there were 744,353 Catholics, 427,810 Presbyterians, 361,917 Protestant Episcopalians, 40,525 Methodists, and 41,885 of all other denominations. The distribution of confessions varies in different parts of the province; while the Protestants are about 75 per cent. of the whole in Antrim, they are only 20 per cent. in Cavan. The preponderance of Protestants in parts of Ulster has led to diversity of feeling and aims between Ulster and more thoroughly Catholic parts of Ireland; and the determination of Ulstermen to offer resolute resistance to all schemes of Home Rule was emphasised by a great convention of 12,000 delegates at Belfast on 17th June 1892. Belfast (q.v.) is the most enterprising town of Ulster and of Ireland; flax-spinning is the most important industry after agriculture. In 1890 the area under flax was 96,896 acres, in 1891 only 74,612; in 1890 there were used in Ulster 20,045 tons of home-grown flax as compared with 19,607 tons imported; in 1891 the figures were 12,455 tons of home-grown and 25,387 tons imported. The order of baronets, nominally founded for the defence of Ulster, had the 'bloody hand' of the O'Neills, the Ulster arms, given them as their cognisance (see BARONET). For the Ulster Herald, see HERALD. The Ulster system of 'Tenant Right' has been substantially incorporated in Irish legislation of 1870-87 (see LAND LAWS). See, besides works cited at IRELAND (and in the section of that article on the Irish Church), the articles TYRCONNEL, TYRONE, ORANGEMEN; and John Harrison, The Scot in Ulster (1888).