Editing Ulster (section)

===Early history===
{{Further|History of Ireland}}
{{More citations needed section|date=October 2012}}
Ulster is one of the [[provinces of Ireland|four Irish provinces]]. Its [[place names in Irish|name]] derives from the [[Irish language]] {{lang|ga|Cúige Uladh}} ({{IPA|ga|ˌkuːɟə ˈʊlˠə|pron}}), meaning 'fifth of the [[Ulaid]]h', named for the ancient inhabitants of the region.

The province's early story extends further back than written records and survives mainly in legends such as the [[Ulster Cycle]].
The [[archaeology]] of Ulster, formerly called Ulandia, gives examples of "ritual enclosures", such as the [[Giant's Ring]] near Belfast, which is an earth bank about 590&nbsp;feet (180 m) in diameter and 15&nbsp;feet (4.5 m) high, in the centre of which there is a [[dolmen]].<ref name="Riordain 66">{{cite book|last=Riordain|first=S. O.|year=1966|edition=reprint|title=Antiquities of the Irish Countryside|series=University Paperbacks|location=London|publisher=Methuen & Co. Ltd}}</ref>

The Boyne and its tributary the Blackwater were the traditional southern boundary of the province of Ulster and appear as such in the {{lang|ga|[[Táin Bó Cúailnge]]}}. According to historian Francis John Byrne the [[Ulaid]] 'possibly still ruled directly in [[County Louth|Louth]] as far as the Boyne in the early seventh century'<ref>p. 113, Byrne, Francis John, Irish kings and high-kings, Batsford, 1987, {{ISBN|0-7134-5882-8}}</ref> when [[Congal Cáech]] made a bid for the [[High King of Ireland|kingship of Tara]]. In 637, the [[Battle 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 ({{langx|ga|Domhnall Brecc}}) of [[Dalriada]]. 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 the [[Northern Uí Néill]], the {{lang|ga|[[Cenél nEógain]]}} of the province of [[Ailech]], gradually eroded the territory of the province of Ulaidh until it lay east of the [[River Bann]]. The {{lang|ga|Cenél nEógain}} would make {{lang|ga|Tír Eóghain}} (most of which forms modern [[County Tyrone]]) their base. Among the [[High King of Ireland|High Kings of Ireland]] were [[Áed Findliath]] (died 879), [[Niall Glúndub]] (died 919), and [[Domnall 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 Norman [[Earldom of Ulster]], when the [[O'Neill]]s 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.

[[File:Bronze statue - geograph.org.uk - 821113.jpg|260px|thumb|A bronze statue commemorating The [[Flight of the Earls]] at [[Rathmullan]] in north [[County Donegal]].]]
[[Domnall Ua Lochlainn]] (died 1121) and [[Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn]] (died 1166) were of this dynasty. The [[Meic Lochlainn]] were in 1241 overthrown by their kin, the clan Ó Néill (see [[O'Neill dynasty]]). The Ó Néill's were from then on established as Ulster's most powerful Gaelic family.

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 over [[Tír Chonaill]] (most of modern County Donegal) in West Ulster.

After the [[Norman Ireland|Norman invasion]] of Ireland in the twelfth century, the east of the province fell by conquest to Norman barons, first [[John de Courcy|De Courcy]] (died 1219), then [[Hugh de Lacy, 1st Earl of Ulster|Hugh de Lacy]] (1176–1243), who founded the [[Earl of Ulster|Earldom of Ulster]] based on the modern counties of Antrim and Down.

In the 1600s Ulster was the last redoubt of the traditional [[Gaels|Gaelic]] way of life, and following the defeat of the Irish forces in the [[Nine Years War (Ireland)|Nine Years War]] (1594–1603) at the [[battle of Kinsale]] (1601), [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]]'s English forces succeeded in subjugating Ulster and all of Ireland.

The Gaelic leaders of Ulster, the [[O'Neill dynasty|O'Neills]] and [[O'Donnell]]s, finding their power under English [[suzerainty]] limited, decamped ''en masse'' in 1607 (the [[Flight of the Earls]]) to [[Roman Catholic]] Europe. This allowed the [[British monarchy|English Crown]] to plant Ulster with more loyal English and Scottish [[Plantations of Ireland|planter]]s, a process which began in earnest in 1610.