Ulster
Nine counties in the north of the island, six of which became Northern Ireland in 1920 and three of which did not. No other province has a border running through it, and no other has to be explained before it can be described.
Ulster is named for the Ulaid, a group of tribes who lived in the east of it — the people whose court at Emain Macha, outside Armagh, is where the Ulster Cycle puts Conchobar mac Nessa, Cú Chulainn and the Red Branch. The province in Irish is Cúige Uladh, the fifth of the Ulaid, and the Ulaid gave their name to a place they had stopped ruling long before the name settled: by the early medieval period the province held three over-kingdoms, Ulaid in the east, Airgíalla in the middle and Ailech in the north-west, and the Ulaid were the smallest of them.
It was the last part of Ireland to fall to the English, and then the most thoroughly changed by it. The Nine Years' War ended in 1603 with the Gaelic lords defeated; four years later the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell sailed from Rathmullan and did not come back, and the lands they left were planted with settlers from England and Scotland. That plantation is why Ulster today has a large Protestant population and a Scots-inflected English that the other three provinces do not, and it is the origin of a division that has not finished working itself out.
In 1920 the Government of Ireland Act put six of the nine counties into Northern Ireland and left Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal outside it. Both things are still true: Ulster has nine counties, and Northern Ireland has six. They are not the same place and the words are not interchangeable, however often they are used as though they were.
Ulster is the second-largest and second-most populous province. Donegal holds a quarter of the Republic's Gaeltacht population, and there are Irish-speaking networks in south Londonderry and in Belfast's Gaeltacht Quarter. Ulster-Scots is spoken across Antrim, Down, Londonderry, Tyrone and Donegal. Lough Neagh, in the east, is the largest lake in Ireland or Britain.
A homeland is where the name is first recorded and densest, not a boundary — people moved. The whole map of the surnames →
How many counties are in Ulster?
9: Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Derry / Londonderry, Monaghan, Tyrone.
What is Ulster in Irish?
Cúige Uladh — “the fifth of Ulaidh” — pronounced roughly “KOO-ig-uh UL-uh”. The province itself is Ulaidh, said “UL-ee”.
Nine counties, or six?
Ulster has nine. Northern Ireland has six of them (Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone) while Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal are in the Republic. Confusingly, the ISO country-subdivision code “IE-U” refers only to those three, because it is a code for a part of one state rather than for the province. Sporting and cultural bodies almost always mean all nine.
Does Ulster have any official status today?
No. The provinces have had no administrative or political function for centuries. They survive as historical and cultural units, and most visibly in sport — the rugby provinces and the GAA's provincial championships.
Know Ulster better than this page does? Tell us. · All four provinces · The counties in Irish