ULSTER (Lat. Ultonia), a province of Ireland, the most northern of the four provinces which compose that kingdom (see IRELAND), is divided into nine counties—Antrim. Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone, each of which is described under its proper head.
The territorial distribution under which Ulster formed a province, or at least a dis tinct territory, is of very ancient origin. It formed one of the five 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'Cithan. O'Doherty, Maguire, MacMahon, etc. 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. The Antrim coast was occupied by a Celtic colony from Scotland and the Isles; but although various efforts were made by the English to effect a permanent settlement in the n. and
n.w., the success was but nominal until the reigns of Elizabeth and of James I., when the plantation of Ulster was effected. Of this gigantic scheme of colonization, the chief scat was the county of Londonderry (q.v.). In Ulster, the Celtic race, owing to the frequent and large infusions of a foreign element, is found in a much smaller proportion. In 1861 the Roman Catholics were slightly in excess of the total of all other denomina tions, the whole pop. being 1,910,108, and the Roman Catholics numbering 963,687. These proportions, owing to 10 years' emigration, are reversed in the returns of 1871. Of the total pop. in 1871, 1,833,228, the Protestants of all denominations made up 935,983; the Roman Catholics only 897,230. Of the former, the greater number, viz., 477,729, were Presbyterians, 393,268 belonged to the Episcopalian church, and the rest were Protestants of other denominations.
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