Ulster in the context of "Government of Northern Ireland"

Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares an open border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. At the 2021 census, its population was 1,903,175, making up around 3% of the UK's population and 27% of the population on the island of Ireland. The Northern Ireland Assembly, established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the UK Government. The government of Northern Ireland cooperates with the government of Ireland in several areas under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The Republic of Ireland also has a consultative role on non-devolved governmental matters through the British–Irish Governmental Conference (BIIG).

Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating a devolved government for the six northeastern counties. As was intended by unionists and their supporters in Westminster, Northern Ireland had a unionist majority, who wanted to remain in the United Kingdom; they were generally the Protestant descendants of colonists from Britain. Meanwhile, the majority in Southern Ireland (which became the Irish Free State in 1922), and a significant minority in Northern Ireland, were Irish nationalists (generally Catholics) who wanted a united independent Ireland. Today, the former generally see themselves as British and the latter generally see themselves as Irish, while a Northern Irish or Ulster identity is claimed by a significant minority from all backgrounds.

Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, FRS (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753) was an Anglo-Irish physician, naturalist, and collector. He had a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Museum, the British Library, and the Natural History Museum, London.

Elected to the Royal Society at the age of 24, Sloane travelled to the Caribbean in 1687 and documented his travels and findings with extensive publications years later. Sloane was a renowned medical doctor among the aristocracy, and was elected to the Royal College of Physicians at age 27. Though he is credited with the invention of chocolate milk, it is more likely that he learned the practice of adding milk to drinking chocolate while living and working in Jamaica. Streets and places were later named after him, including Hans Place, Hans Crescent, and Sloane Square in and around Chelsea, London—the area of his final residence—and also Sir Hans Sloane Square in Killyleagh, his birthplace in Ulster.

Ulster English, also called Northern Hiberno-English or Northern Irish English, is the variety of English spoken mostly around the Irish province of Ulster and throughout Northern Ireland. The dialect has been influenced by the local Ulster dialect of the Scots language, brought over by Scottish settlers during the Plantation of Ulster and subsequent settlements throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. It also coexists alongside the Ulster dialect of the Irish (Gaelic) language, which also influenced the dialect.

The two major divisions of Ulster English are Mid-Ulster English, the most widespread variety, and Ulster Scots English, spoken in much of northern County Antrim along a continuum with the Scots language. South Ulster English is a geographically transitional dialect between Mid-Ulster English and English spoken south of Ulster, in the Republic of Ireland.

The partition of Ireland (Irish: críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK) divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It was enacted on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Act intended both territories to remain within the United Kingdom and contained provisions for their eventual reunification. The smaller Northern Ireland territory was created with a devolved government (Home Rule) and remained part of the UK. Although the larger Southern Ireland was also created, its administration was not recognised by most of its citizens, who instead recognised the self-declared 32-county Irish Republic.

Ireland had a largely Catholic nationalist majority who wanted self-governance or independence. Prior to partition, the Irish Parliamentary Party used its control of the balance of power in the British Parliament to persuade the government to introduce Home Rule Bills that would give Ireland a devolved government within the UK. This led to the Home Rule Crisis (1912–14), when Ulster unionists founded a large paramilitary organization (at least 100,000 men), the Ulster Volunteers, that could be used to prevent Ulster from being ruled by an Irish government. Although the Government of Ireland Act 1914 (to create a single administration) was passed, implementation was deferred due to the First World War (1914–18). Support for Irish independence grew during the war, particularly in the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising (an armed rebellion against British rule).

Ulster Protestants are an ethnoreligious group in the Irish province of Ulster, where they make up about 43.5% of the population. Most Ulster Protestants are descendants of settlers who arrived from Great Britain in the early 17th century Ulster Plantation. This was the settlement of the Gaelic, Catholic province of Ulster by Scots and English speaking Protestants, mostly from the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England. Many more Scottish Protestant migrants arrived in Ulster in the late 17th century. Those who came from Scotland were mostly Presbyterians, while those from England were mostly Anglicans (see Church of Ireland). There is also a small Methodist community and the Methodist Church in Ireland dates to John Wesley's visit to Ulster in 1752. Although most Ulster Protestants descend from Lowland Scottish people (some of whose descendants consider themselves Ulster Scots), many descend from English, and to a lesser extent, from Irish, Welsh and Huguenots.

Since the 17th century, sectarian and political divisions between Ulster Protestants and Irish Catholics have played a major role in the history of Ulster, and of Ireland as a whole. It has led to bouts of violence and political upheaval, notably in the Irish Confederate Wars, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the Williamite War, the Armagh disturbances, Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Irish revolutionary period, and the Troubles. Today, the vast majority of Ulster Protestants live in Northern Ireland, which was created in 1921 to have an Ulster Protestant majority, and in the east of County Donegal. Politically, most are unionists, who have an Ulster British identity and want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The Plantation of Ulster (Irish: Plandáil Uladh; Ulster Scots: Plantin o Ulstèr) was the organised colonisation (plantation) of Ulster – a province of Ireland – by people from Great Britain during the reign of King James VI and I.

Small privately funded plantations by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while the official plantation began in 1609. Most of the land had been confiscated from the native Gaelic chiefs, several of whom had fled Ireland for mainland Europe in 1607 following the Nine Years' War against English rule. The official plantation comprised an estimated half a million acres (2,000 km) of arable land in counties Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Donegal, and Londonderry. Land in counties Antrim, Down, and Monaghan was privately colonised with the king's support.

Southern Ireland (Irish: Deisceart Éireann, pronounced [dʲɛʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ]) was the larger of the two parts of Ireland that were created when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It comprised 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland or about five-sixths of the area of the island, whilst the remaining six counties, which occupied most of Ulster in the north of the island, formed Northern Ireland.

The Act of 1920, which became effective on 3 May 1921, was intended to create two self-governing territories within Ireland, each with its own parliament and governmental institutions, and both remaining within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It also contained provisions for co-operation between the two territories and for the eventual reunification of Ireland. However, in the 1921 elections for Southern Ireland's House of Commons, Sinn Féin candidates won 124 of the 128 seats (all candidates were unopposed and no actual polling occurred), and ignored the parliament, assembling instead as the Second Dáil. The House of Commons of Southern Ireland—consisting of the four unionist members—met only once, while the Senate only met twice. Continuing unrest resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Provisional Government, which administered Southern Ireland from 16 January 1922 to 5 December 1922: effectively a transitional administration for the period between the ratifying of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the establishment of the Irish Free State. Its legitimacy was disputed by the Anti-Treaty delegates to Dáil Éireann.

United Ireland (Irish: Éire Aontaithe), also referred to as Irish reunification or a New Ireland, is the proposition that all of Ireland should be a single sovereign state. At present, the island is divided politically: the sovereign state of Ireland (legally described also as the Republic of Ireland) has jurisdiction over the majority of Ireland, while Northern Ireland, which lies entirely within (but consists of only 6 of 9 counties of) the Irish province of Ulster, is part of the United Kingdom. Achieving a united Ireland is a central tenet of Irish nationalism and Republicanism, particularly of both mainstream and dissident republican political and paramilitary organisations. Unionists support Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom and oppose Irish unification.

Ireland has been partitioned since May 1921, when the Government of Ireland Act 1920 came into effect, creating two separate jurisdictions—Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland—within the United Kingdom. Southern Ireland never fully functioned and was soon replaced by the Irish Free State in 1922, which became independent, while Northern Ireland opted to remain part of the UK. The Anglo-Irish Treaty, which led to the establishment in December 1922 of a dominion called the Irish Free State, recognised partition, but this was opposed by anti-Treaty republicans. When the anti-Treaty Fianna Fáil party came to power in the 1930s, it adopted a new constitution which claimed sovereignty over the entire island. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) had a united Ireland as its goal during the conflict with British security forces and loyalist paramilitaries from the 1960s to the 1990s known as The Troubles. The Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998, which ended the conflict, acknowledged the legitimacy of the desire for a united Ireland, while declaring that it could be achieved only with the consent of a majority of the people of both jurisdictions on the island, and providing a mechanism for ascertaining this in certain circumstances.